Economic Survey 2009-10: Ports below par

The average turnaround time in major Indian ports continues to be way below the desired average, undermining the competitiveness of Indian ports, the annual economic survey said.

"Despite adequate capacity and modern handling facilities, the average turnaround time of major Indian ports was 3.87 days in 2008-09, compared to 10 hours in Hong Kong. This undermines the competitiveness of Indian ports," it said.

As one of the remedial measures, it has called for better connectivity of ports with the hinterland to avoid congestion and facilitate faster movement of goods. "Since ports are not adequately linked to the hinterland, the evacuation of cargo is slow, leading to congestion," the survey said.

It added, however, that all port trusts have set up groups with representatives of the highways authority, railways and state governments to improve rail-road connectivity of ports.

The survey noted that the pre-berthing waiting time at major ports showed an improvement from 11.40 hours in 2007-08 to 9.55 hours in 2008-09. But it added, "Significant inter-port variations in pre-berthing waiting time persisted."

India has 12 major ports that carry about 75 per cent of the total traffic and 200 non-major ports, of which 66 handle traffic.