Against a global benchmark of less than 24 hours, which ports like Rotterdam and Singapore take to load and unload ships, the spectacle of consignments to India?s numero uno port?Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT)?getting blocked for months is a normal phenomenon. The situation, incomprehensible in any major international port, has become quite run-of-the-mill for the Indian ones. With each passing year, the delay in the plan to corporatise all major ports, starting with JNPT, has become monumental but corporatisation is urgently necessary to change the way they are currently managed. Hopefully, a fresh exercise would not meet the same fate as the aborted attempt in the late nineties when the ministry of surface transport and the Asian Development Bank used the expertise of consultancy groups to prepare the guidelines on corporatisation of ports and even introduced the Major Port Trust Amendment Bill in 2001, which lapsed following the dissolution of the thirteenth Lok Sabha. In fact, though the union budget for 2001-02 proposed the corporatisation of the JNPT, the government later developed cold feet and decided to first evaluate the performance of the Ennore Port, India?s first corporatised port that began operations in 2002, before proceeding with any substantial changes in the institutional framework. So the port trusts survived the reform attempts and have continued to operate with an umbrella objective of serving public interests rather than maximising revenues or improving profits. Improving the operational efficiencies of the ports has, therefore, ranked way down in the list of priorities. And attempts to reform the institutional structure governing ports have floundered time and again because of the resistance of labour groups and also because of the bureaucracy, as any substantial change would mean a dilution of their control over the port operations.
Of the twelve major ports that come under the Major Port Trusts Act of 1963, eleven are governed by trusts. These consist of motley representatives of the central and state governments, shipping lines, railways, and labour unions and other groups, slowing down the process of decision-making as there is often a conflict of interests between the diverse groups. Also the port trusts have to usually take the concurrence of the government before making decisions, especially those involving larger financial commitments. The delay has also made the users adept at creating short cuts, which themselves are major obstacles to corporatisation?which is expected to steer a way out of the mess. The transformation will give the ports a greater degree of autonomy from the government and help them muster more resources from the market, reducing their dependence on budgetary support. A board-managed enterprise can also attract more professional expertise and even facilitate disinvestments. But such radical changes in the institutional framework will require amendments to the Major Port Trusts Act of 1963 as a first step and the government should not delay spelling out the details on the proposed changes in the legislation.