Timely arrival of monsoon has seen a slight drop in growth to the tune of 1.4% in cargo movement at major ports across the country in June 2010.

While commodities like iron ore, petrol, oil and lubricants (POL) and other bulk cargo items suffered the impact with 19%, 10% and 3% drop in growth respectively, cargo like fertiliser, coal and container traffic have managed to register significant growth ensuring that there is no serious dent on the all India movement of cargo.

According to a recent report by Motilal Oswal Financial Service, the fall seen in June 2010, was the first month of growth dropping after the decline seen in July 2009. The year-on-year performance of cargo traffic at major Indian ports declined by 1.4% to reach 44.8 million tonne in June 2010. Cargo traffic, in June 2009, stood at 45.4 million tonne. The performance was high compared with those in previous years due to late monsoon, leading to a higher base, which impacted volume growth, the report said.

In June 2010, container cargo movement has been a clear savior. It was up by 17% year-on-year (y-o-y) at 9.4 million tonnes as against 8 million tonnes in June 2009. In JNPT, container cargo traffic was at 4.8 million tonnes, up 12% y-o-y, while in Chennai Port, it was up by 39% y-o-y at 2.4 million tonne and in Tuticorin port, the growth was 3% y-o-y at 0.55 million tonne. However, in Kolkata there was a decline of 7% in container cargo traffic to 0.51 million tonne, it said.

Besides container, cargo traffic has also improved in June 2010. Infact, six ports reported cargo traffic growth. Of which, Cochin, Mormugao, Tuticorin and JNPT volumes were up 21%, 15%, 14%, and 12% y-o-y, respectively.