The project report was prepared by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for the Royal Netherlands Embassy which is the financier of the project.

The project proposal envisaged setting up of a fully functional and competent training centre at five container handling ports of Mumbai, Calcutta, Kochi, Chennai and Jawaharlal Nehru ports. The ministry, in consultation with participating ports, felt that training of workers alone would not result in improving port productivity. It should be supported by efforts to improve managerial ability and advice and assistance to managers on how to create an appropriate terminal organisation.

It was recommended that a second smaller scale project be executed in parallel with the port-worker training programme.

The ministry is hoping that this programme would also be funded by the Dutch funding agency to enable the National Institute ofPort Management and the Indian Institute of Port Management to deliver suitable management and supervisory training programmes at the national level.

The project is aimed at improving container handling performance, working condition and practices, and safety of employees. Factors responsible for operational problems at the ports have been identified as poor design and lay-out of container terminal, multiplicity of handling agencies and poor coordination between them, fragmented and uncoordinated management structure, lack of good operational and container control procedures, lack of computer software and management organisation for operation, poor communication and cooperation and unsatisfactory level of technical skill of managers, supervisors and port workers.