India: Port capacity utilization to improve on delays in new projects

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

30 Sep 2011

The existing ports in the country are expected to have better capacity utilisation due to delays in creating additional capacity, ratings agency Icra has said. "Progress on the award

and execution of new projects at both the major and non-major ports remained below par because of various systemic impediments," Icra Senior Vice-president and Co-head for Corporate Sector Ratings K Ravichandran said in a report. The greenfield projects by the private sector have made slow progress because of problems at bidding, pre-construction and post-completion stages, the most prominent being delays in land acquisition and statutory clearances on the coastal, forest, pollution and environmental fronts, said the report. Further, it warns that achieving the targets under the ambitious National Maritime Agenda 2020 which envisages a capacity of over three billion tonne with most of the projects being executed and funded by the private sector, will be doubtful if corrective steps are not taken. "The capacity projections that it makes would be achieved only if the various impediments in the way of project execution are removed expeditiously," the agency said. As the hurdles are yet to be overcome and the backlog on existing projects continues to remain large, there will be high capacity utilisation among incumbent ports, Ravichandran said. The 3Cs -- coal, crude oil and containers are expected to drive much of the growth and accordingly, port ventures with an exposure to these cargo categories stand to gain, the report said.
Source: PTI