Cargo handling at major ports up 3.11% at 651 million tonnes in April-Jan FY19

For the period April-January 2018-19, nine ports Kolkata (including Haldia), Paradip, Visakhapatnam, Kamarajar, Chennai, Cochin, New Mangalore, JNPT and Deendayal have registered positive growth in traffic.

The Kamarajar Port in Tamil Nadu recorded the highest growth of 15.56 per cent, followed by Kolkata (9.86 per cent), Cochin (8 per cent), JNPT (7.46 per cent) and Paradip (6.4 per cent).

Kamarajar Port saw a 21.7 per cent growth in container traffic while handling of other miscellaneous cargo grew 41.23 per cent, other liquids (11.63 per cent), POL (9.14 per cent) and thermal and steam coal (5.18 per cent).

Kolkata Port recorded overall growth of 9.86 per cent with. Kolkata Dock System (KDS) posting traffic growth of 4.68 per cent and Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) recording a growth of 12.11 per cent.

During the period April-January 2018-19, Deendayal (Kandla) Port handled the highest volume of traffic of 94.55 million tonnes, comprising 16.33 per cent of the overall cargo handling by major ports, followed by Paradip with 89.98 million tonnes (15.54 per cent share), JNPT with 58.6 million tonnes (10.12 per cent share), Visakhapatnam with 54.73 million tonnes (9.45 per cent share) and Kolkata (including Haldia) with 52.18 million tonnes (9.01 per cent share). Together, these ports handled around 60 per cent of major port traffic.

Commodity-wise, POL had the maximum percentage share of 33.35 per cent, followed by container (20.8 per cent), thermal and steam coal (14.95 per cent), other miscellaneous cargo (10.51 per cent), coking and other coal (8.26 per cent), iron ore and pellets (5.71 per cent), other liquid (4.20 per cent), finished fertilizer (1.21 per cent) and FRM (1.01 per cent).