JNPT will upgrade its world ranking: S N Maharana

"After commissioning of the first phase of the fourth container terminal, JN Port will retain its position not only in India but also upgrade its ranking in the world," says S N Maharana, Chief Manager (M&E), Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT)
Ports play an important role in the development of trade and commerce in any country. India is becoming a major trading partner in world commerce. Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), located in Navi Mumbai is one of the ports contributing immensely to India’s growth in trade. It is the biggest container handling Port in India, handling around 60 per cent of the country’s containerised cargo. JNP boasts of a full-fledged customs house, 23 container freight stations and a large number of inland container depots spread across the country. In an exclusive interview with ACE Update, S N Maharana discusses on the performance of JNPT and its expansion plans.
Could you tell us about the financial performance of the port for the year 2013-14?During the Financial Year 2013-14, total income was ` 1,697.72 crore, an increase of 13.50 per cent over the previous year’s income of ` 1,495.83 crore. Operating profit (before tax) was ` 767.06 crore and net profit (after tax) was ` 506.34 crore. Operating ratio was 45.42 per cent, whereas return on capital employed was 21.71 per cent for the FY 2013-14.
According to you which are the areas that need utmost attention?Capacity addition projects need utmost priority. During the last five years port traffic is saturated and remains between 60 and 65 million tonnes, whereas container traffic remains between 4 and 4.3 million TEUs due to capacity constraints at sea side. Attention is also given for evacuation of the cargo.
Can you mention some of your upcoming projects?JN Port is taking various steps to augment its capacity at sea side as well as land side also. Some of the important upcoming projects include deepening and widening of Mumbai–JN Port Channel, standalone container handling facility with a quay length of 330 metres towards the north on design, build, finance, operate, transfer (DBFOT) basis, development of fourth container terminal on DBFOT basis, modernisation of JNPCT by augmenting additional equipment, development of Mooring Dolphins at liquid cargo Terminal to decongest liquid terminal, centralised parking plaza, development of additional liquid cargo terminal on DBFOT basis, port-based multi-product SEZ and multi-modal logistic park and dry port.
What about the competition from other ports?JN Port is handling about 44 per cent of India’s container traffic. It is not a healthy situation that a single port is handling a major chunk of the country’s container traffic. Any failure in the logistic chain will stall all the supply chains.  The share of JNPT’s container traffic in the country will reduce but the traffic trend will be in upward direction. Definitely some traffic will divert to other ports which are having the state-of-the-art facilities, for a short period, but I am sure that after commissioning of the first phase of the fourth container terminal, JN Port will retain its position not only in India but also upgrade its ranking in the world.
Do you have any plan to increase capacity?JN Port is increasing its capacity. We are developing standalone container handling facility with a quay length of 330 metres towards the north on DBFOT basis. With that, we would like to achieve 0.8 million TEUs (i.e. 10 million tonnes) capacity addition in 2016.
Development of fourth container terminal on DBFOT basis with an estimated cost of Rs.7, 915 crore will result in capacity addition of total 4.8 million TEUs (60 million tonnes) in two phases.
We are also working on the modernisation of JNPCT by augmenting additional equipment. By replacing three old Rail Mounted Quayside Cranes (RMQCs) at main berth will add capacity of 0.15 million TEUs and shifting of three old RMQCs from main container berth to Shallow Draught Terminal will add 0.075 million TEUs (about 2.81 million tonnes) by the end of this year. The estimated cost of the project is ` 98.8 crore.
Also, development of Mooring Dolphins at liquid cargo terminal will decongest liquid terminal. It will increase the LOA of the permissible vessels in liquid terminal, adding a capacity of 1 million tonnes at a cost of ` 8.71 crore and it will help to decongest the liquid terminal. This project is expected to be completed by December this year.
JN Port is also developing an additional liquid cargo terminal on DBFOT basis with an estimated cost of ` 2,496 crore. Once completed, it will have a capacity of handling 26 million tonnes of liquid cargo. The Port has received RFQs from seven agencies and evaluation is in progress. The PPPAC has cleared the proposal for recommendation to the Cabinet Committee.  How do you visualise the future scenario of the country’s port sector?As per the Maritime Agenda 2010-2020, the government’s ambitious plan on the maritime sector, envisages for augmenting the port capacity to the tune of 3.1 billion tonnes including non-major ports operating under maritime states with a traffic projection of 2.49 billion tonnes upto 2019-20.

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