Category Archives: Shipping

According to the Indian Ports Association (IPA), India’s major ports continued to witness a fall in cargo handling, registering 18.06 per cent dip to 193.38 million tonnes (MT) between April and July this fiscal. Cargo volumes at these 12 major ports under the control of the Centre declined for the fourth straight month in July 2020 and all ports barring Mormugao saw a negative growth. These 12 ports had together handled 236.01 MT of cargo during April-July 2018-19. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, sharp declines were witnessed in handling of containers, coal and POL (petroleum, oil and lubricant) among other commodities. Ports like Chennai, Cochin and Kamrajar saw their cargo volumes nosedive over 30 per cent during April-July, while JNPT and Kolkata suffered a drop of over 20 per cent. India has 12 major ports under the control of the central government — Deendayal (erstwhile Kandla), Mumbai, JNPT, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Kamarajar (earlier Ennore), V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia). These ports handle about 61 per cent of the country’s total cargo traffic. These ports handled 705 MT of cargo last fiscal. While Chennai port saw 32.53 per cent decline in cargo handling to 11.08 MT, Kamarajar (Ennore) port suffered a drop of 35.64 per cent to 7 MT in April-July, as per IPA data. Cochin Port saw a dip of 32.78 per cent to 7.76 MT during the period. Cargo handling at JNPT port slipped 27.69 per cent to 16.94 MT, while the same at Kolkata declined 26.09 per cent to 16.05 MT. Mumbai port logged a fall of 19.79 per cent to 15.85 MT.

To enhance reliability while building a network that helps customers with more resilient and agile supply chains, A.P. Moller – Maersk announces improvements to its network between Europe and the Middle East & Indian Subcontinent (West Central Asia). The updated network will connect more cargo via the Maersk hub in Colombo (Sri Lanka), allowing customers to do consolidation from different origins and better connect their cargo from both Asia and West Central Asia. Furthermore, by linking Middle East stronger to Maersk key hubs in Europe, the changes provide customers additional flexibility and agility to move cargo between different markets. “To meet changing customer needs, we have reviewed our service network and identified opportunities to create new solutions for how we connect Europe and the Middle East & Indian Subcontinent region. Through increased flexibility and connectivity these changes will offer new, interesting ways for our customers to connect their supply chains both from an import and export perspective,” says Johan Sigsgaard, Head of Europe and Middle East Trades, A.P. Moller – Maersk.

Expressing concern over the high logistics cost in the country, which was 30 per cent more than those in developed nations, Mansukh Mandaviya, Shipping Minister, informs, “The government has initiated multiple steps, including strengthening inland waterways, to reduce high logistics cost. He urged private players to join hands to propel India’s growth. “The government of India has taken a large number of steps to reduce logistics cost in the country in order to fuel growth. These include making a network of inland waterways to transport cargo in a cost-effective manner. We have made 1,400 km of waterways operational. The aim of creating a network of waterways is to reduce logistics costs, boost exports and make the country self-reliant, as per Prime Minister ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative,” Mandaviya said. “It is time that private players join hands with government in PPP (public private partnership) projects including ports to fuel economic growth,” the minister said. He urged private sector companies to come forward for initiatives like indigenous building of cranes for ports which so far were being imported at an annual cost of about Rs 10,000 crore. The shipping ministry has taken initiatives like introducing the ‘PCSIx’ platform to reduce logistics costs. Port community system ‘PCS1x’ is a cloud-based technology that offers services like notification, work-flow and track and trace and it is estimated that this feature alone will reduce up to two days in the life of a transaction. “Inter-ministerial consultations were on to boost multimodal transport in the country. Enhanced focus on waterways has resulted in higher cargo movement on inland waterways as well as the Indo-Bangladesh protocol route which has enabled faster delivery of cargo to north eastern states, including …

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust registered a throughput of 344,316 TEUs in container handling, which is 19% higher as compared to June 2020. The port handled total of 196 vessels and the overall traffic handled in July was 4.85 million tonnes (MT) which is an increase of 19 per cent as against 4.07 MT handled in June 2020. Sanjay Sethi, IAS, Chairman, JNPT said, “JNPT will continue to extend support for the country’s economic growth and perform its duties to steadfast growth trajectory of the port sector. In July we have seen exports increasing and expect even the imports to get back to normal by the end of this month. There were few ups and downs but we have managed to keep the operations up and running. Also, JNPT is the first port where port-led economic development is evolving successfully and we are confident of attracting leading global companies for investing here at JNPT SEZ.“

Hindustan Infralog Private Limited (HIPL), a joint venture between DP World and National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) has announced an investment of Rs 1000 crore in developing its Nhava Sheva Business Park (NSBP) Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Mumbai. NSBP, a Special Purpose Vehicle, is a co-developer for the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) SEZ. The company has signed a lease agreement with JNPT for the project. The FTZ is on a long-term Lease of 60 years, and is located 5 kms away from JNPT. Rizwan Soomar, CEO & MD, DP World Subcontinent, said, “The Free Trade Zone will be ready towards the end of 2021. This investment reinforces DP World’s strategy and commitment to India, and strengthens our integrated logistics portfolio in the country. Alongside DP World’s global network of ports & terminals and inland logistics infrastructure in the region, the FTZ will provide a seamless experience for both domestic and international customers.”

To facilitate container truck movement from one bank to another, the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) is weighing the option of constructing a tunnel under the Hooghly River. This move could potentially free city roads of 700-800 trucks daily. Buoyed by the success of underwater tunnelling work for East-West Metro corridor, the KoPT, rechristened as the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, is planning to appoint a consultant to conduct a feasibility study for building a similar structure under the river. Meanwhile, speaking at a seminar organised by CII, Shipping Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said the Centre has waived off waterways charges. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) had levied the waterway usage charges at a rate of Rs 0.02 per gross registered tonnage (GRT) per km for inland cargo ships and Rs 0.05 for cruise vessels on national waterways.

Shipwaves has joined Maersk-IBM developed TradeLends platform to accelerate the digitisation of the ocean logistics space in India and the Middle East. Having recently allowed shipping bill of lading to be filed over a blockchain platform, India has been betting big on blockchain-enabled solutions to digitize its maritime supply chains. Along the same vein, TradeLens provides controlled, permissioned access to secure and immutable transportation documents while bringing together stakeholders such as shipping carriers, ports, customs offices, and other players in the ecosystem through its blockchain-led platform. Through this linkage, Shipwaves will be able to provide timely end-to-end supply chain visibility, secured sharing of digital shipping documents, and data directly from partners. This will enable the forwarder to improve efficiency and decrease operational costs by a significant margin. Additionally, the smart-contract based workflows will automate and digitise multi-party interactions, which will result in improved efficiency.

According to the latest data from the Indian Ports’ Association (IPA), container cargo in terms of TEUs (twenty foot equivalent unit) at India’s 12 major ports dropped 32.28 per cent to 1.74 million in the first quarter of the current fiscal. In terms of tonnage, the container cargo declined 30.11 per cent to 26.34 million tonnes (MT) in the quarter. These ports had handled containers to the tune of 2.57 million TEUs and 37.69 MT in terms of tonnage in the April-June period of the previous financial year. India has 12 major ports — Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Kamarajar (Ennore), V O Chidambaranar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) — that handle about 61 percent of the country’s total cargo traffic.

While reviewing the development activities of Vallarpadam Terminal of Cochin Port, Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State for Shipping, Government of India, says, “We are developing the transshipment facility on the Indian port to ensure that the Indian cargo trans-ship through Indian port. Resolving various issues of Vallarpadam Terminal is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Shipping.” The Minister directed officials to chalk out the strategy to tackle the various challenges and actualize the vision of the transshipment hub of India and pioneer hub in South Asia. According to the statement issued by the ministry, “The Kochi International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), locally known as the Vallarpadam Terminal, is located strategically on the Indian coastline. It successfully fulfills all the criteria which are needed to develop it as a transshipment hub.”

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has achieved an another mile stone in development of SEZ by becoming the first-of-its-kind operational Port based multi-product SEZ. The port has announced that two units of its Special Economic Zone namely, OWS LLP and Krish Food Industry have completed their first phase of operational activity and are declared operational units by Development Commissioner, SEEPZ, SEZ. The port has been developing a multi-product Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in its freehold land of 277 hectares at Navi Mumbai. The SEZ aims to boost exports by enabling port-led industrialisation under the Sagarmala initiative of the Ministry of Shipping. The foundation stone of the project was laid by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in August 2014. Sanjay Sethi, IAS, Chairman, JNPT, said, “For JNPT, this is truly a great occasion as JNPT becomes the first port where port-led economic development is evolving successfully. JNPT is confident of attracting leading global companies for making India a manufacturing hub as the infrastructure development underway in JNPT SEZ is as per the international benchmark. The potential units investment and the employment generation will give a boost to the entire eco-system around JNPT region.”