Mumbai: As part of its focus on developing the maritime infrastructure, the government will increase the draft or channel depth at all the major ports to 20 meters for revenue-maximisation, Union shipping minister Nitin Gadkari has said.
"The draft is very important for a port. We have decided to take the draft of all the ports to 18 meters and from there up to 20 meters," Gadkari said here at an event over the weekend.
The minister said there is a sizeable increase in revenue if the draft is increased, saying if the draft goes down to 18 meters from 20, the per tonne revenue goes down by up to USD 30.
It can be noted that most of the major ports in the country spend hundreds of crores for dredging due to high soil erosion annually to maintain the draft while increasing the channel depth involves capital dredging that is capital intensive, which the ministry is planning to fund.
The draft of the nation's largest port JNPT is around 16 meters currently and if this goes up to 20 meters, it can allow large ships to berth at its terminals which it is unable to do.
There are 12 major ports in the public sector in the country including the JNPT, Mumbai, Kandla, Kochi, Chennai, Kolkata, Vishakapattanam and Mangalore among others.
Stating that the "entire economics" of a project changes if the draft is deeper, Gadkari said the ministry will be funding all the ports to get the draft up to 20 meters.
The financial implications of such a move are not immediately known, though. Gadkari said his ministry has initiated a project of increasing the draft at the Mormugoa Port as a PPP.
Gadkari over the weekend had said with port unions opposing corporatisation of ports, the ministry said attempts are being made to find alternatives for upgrading the ports and their services, beyond bringing them under the purview of the Companies Act as announced in the Budget.
He had said his ministry was talking to Finance Ministry on the alternatives, but did not elaborate on what those alternatives might be.
In the Budget, Jaitley had announced the government intention to corporatise ports, saying, "ports need to attract investments as well as leverage the huge land resource lying unused with them and to enable us to do so ports in the public sector will be encouraged to corporatise and become companies under the Company's Act."
