Industry watchers and experts urge government to fast-track implementation of port sector projects. The shipping ministry has not been able to award any large projects last year owing to several reasons.
While the projects could improve capacity for the port sector in the country, experts are worried about the pace at which the projects could be implemented.
Last year, four separate port projects, estimated to cost about Rs 22,000 crore, had failed to take off in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala.
MoUs were cancelled and in some cases the port authorities had to call for rebids after realising that the exceedingly high amounts offered by private investors were completely unrealistic.
The shipping ministry aims to raise the total port capacity to 3,300 million tonne from 1,200 million tonne now, under its maritime agenda 2010-2020. This needs an estimated investment of Rs 2.9 lakh crore.
Currently, the 13 major ports in the country handle 63 percent of the seaborne traffic at present, while the non-major ports handle the remaining 36 percent capacity.
It may be noted that the central government announced to set up two new ports in the country at West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh respectively to in a bid to increase port capacity in the country.
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