The major ports in India have recorded a growth of 3.91% and together handled 174.02 million tons of cargo during the period April to June, 2018 as against 167.48 million tons handled during the corresponding period of the previous year. For the period from April-June 2018, nine ports – Kolkata including Haldia, Paradip, Visakhapatnam, Kamarajar, Chennai, Cochin, New Mangalore, JNPT and Deendayal (Kandla) have registered positive growth in traffic. The highest growth was registered by Kamarajar Port (11.93%), followed by Kolkata including Haldia (10.21%), Paradip (9%), Cochin (7.85%) and Visakhapatnam (7.24 %). Kamarajar Port’s growth was mainly due to increase in other liquids by 29.63%, other miscellaneous cargo by 15.06%, POL by 7.51% and thermal and steam coal by 4.93%.
In Kolkata Port, overall growth was 10.21%. Kolkata Dock System (KDS) registered traffic growth of 2.82%. Whereas Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) registered impressive growth of 13.49%, which is the highest among all the major ports. During the period April to June 2018, Deendayal (Kandla) Port handled the highest volume of traffic i.e. 29.13 million tons (16.74% share), followed by Paradip with 26.64 million tons (15.31% share), JNPT with 17.37 million tons (9.98% share), Visakhapatnam with 16.20 million tons (9.31% share) and Kolkata, including Haldia, with 15.13 million tons (8.69%). Together, these five ports handled around 60% of major port traffic.
