India’s top 12 ports witnessed a considerable decline in cargo traffic for the eighth straight month in November adversely impacted by the pandemic, according to ports sector industry body IPA.
Cargo traffic at 12 major ports that are under the control of the Centre dropped by 10.53% to 414.30 million tonne during April-November period of the current fiscal compared to 463.05 MT during April-November of the last fiscal.
Shipping Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had recently said the cargo traffic at 12 major ports declined considerably March onwards due to the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. All ports barring Mormugao — which recorded a 17.58% increase in cargo handling to 12.20 MT — saw a decline.
Cargo handling at Kamrajar Port (Ennore) nosedived 29.65% during April-November to 14.46 MT, while ports like Chennai, Cochin and Mumbai saw their cargo volumes dropping by about 17% during the said period.
JNPT suffered a decline of 15%.
Deendayal Port reported a 10.15% drop in cargo volume while VO Chidambarnar recorded a dip of 11.97% and cargo handling at New Mangalore dropped by over 7%. Paradip Port recorded a decline of 1.38%.
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).
In the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, sharp declines were witnessed in handling of containers, coal and petroleum, oil and lubricants among other commodities.
These ports handle about 61% of the country’s total cargo traffic. They handled 705 MT of cargo last fiscal.
Mandaviya had told Parliament in September that there was a considerable decline in the total traffic, containers traffic and other than containers traffic in March, April, May, June, July and August, 2020 as compared to the corresponding months in 2019.
The minister, however, had added that recovery has started since June 2020.
