Seeking to expedite the process of corporatising ports, the shipping ministry has asked Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) to quickly submit a plan on how it will transit from a trust to a corporate if it is allowed to. JNPT is the leading contender under the government?s renewed zeal to give major ports freedom in decision making by converting them into PSEs.
?We have asked JNPT to submit a proposal and make a presentation thereon to the ministry on corporatising the port. JNPT is expected to give the proposal by the end of this month,? a senior official in the ministry said, requesting anonymity.
Shipping secretary K Mohandas had said on June 21 that the process of corporatisation of major ports is on and the decision is expected soon. Corporatisation will give autonomy to ports in taking decisions to award projects and charge tariff. This is intended to improve efficiency and speed up capacity expansion programme.
The ministry is going slow in awarding port expansion projects and expects to fall short of the target of increasing capacity of major ports to more than 1,000 million tonne by the end of March 2012 by close to 200 mt. JNPT handled fourth highest traffic in financial year 2009-10 at 60.75 mt, but fell short of the target of 67.88 mt. The port handled more traffic than its capacity of 57.96 mt.
At present, Ennore Port Ltd is the only corporate entity among 13 major ports that the country has. After Ennore Port was made a public sector company in 2001, the government proposed to amend Major Port Trusts Act with the view to corporatise more ports but the proposal could not be passed.
The decision to corporatise ports follows the recommendations of various high-level committees on the issue. Last year, a panel headed by Vijay Chhibbar, financial advisor to the ministry, suggested corporatising more ports. The committee had observed the suggestions made by two earlier panels.
A 2006 committee, which studied the experience of Ennore Port after corporatisation, also recommended complete corporatisation of JNPT and Haldia Dock Complex. The panel said specific activities at Kandla, Tuticorin, New Mangalore, Chennai and Paradip ports can be corporatised by forming wholly-owned subsidiaries to carry out different operations. Visakhapatnam, Mormugao, Cochin, Mumbai and Kolkata were considered as having low corporatisation potential as they had surplus manpower.