CHENNAI, February 12: A major initiative taken by ministry of surface transport (MOST) to corporatise the Ennore port and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has been "put on hold."The ministry had drawn up and submitted a concrete corporatisation programme to the the cabinet over six months ago. The proposal had laid down a "step by step game plan to corporatise the two ports."
Talking to The Financial Express, top ministry officials said "the fluid political position," was a major reason which has resulted in the(MOST) initiative being put in cold storage.
"The current cabinet has indicated it will not be taking a decision. We will now have to wait for the new cabinet to clear the programme," they said. The officials do not expect to get the final go-ahead before this August.
It is reliably learnt that the proposal was submitted to the cabinet well before the political uncertainties which pulled down the Gujral government had surfaced. The reasons for the cabinet not clearing theprogramme are, however, not known. MOST officials too refused to comment on the issue.
Had the proposal been cleared, the Ennore port, coming up in Tamil Nadu at an investment of over Rs 1300 crore, would have been the first south Indian port to be corporatised.
The proposal, it is learnt, had mentioned that the corporatisation of the Ennore port was a "relatively simpler task," as the port itself was still under construction. This was to have been followed by the corporatisation of the JNPT. The ministry had given a preference to newer ports in its proposal to the cabinet.
"The older ports have been operating for quite some time now. A lot of issues like valuation of the assets will have to be resolved before corporatising them. But it will be much easier to corporatise the newer ports," a official explained.
Internationally, it is a well established fact that corporatisation goes a long way in helping ports perform better. The PSA Corporation, formerly Port of Singapore Authority, is one port whichhas had remarkable success after being corporatised. MOST officials, it is learnt, had carefully examined the Singapore model before drawing up its own proposal.
The ministry is currently drawing up a master plan for the development of ports in the country over the next 20 years. "Vision-2020 will be a national blue print and will present a comprehensive route map on port development," officials said.
Vision 2020, it is learnt, will look beyond MOST's Ninth Plan document, which had called for a doubling of the cargo handling capacity to 424 million tonnes before the end of the plan period. The ministry of surface transport is also working on a total revamp of the Major Port's Act, 1963.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
