Indian Port scenario

India has a coastline of 5500 km .We have 12 major ports and 141 non-major ports .The major ports handled ~384 million tonnes and Non-major ports 126 million tonnes.The container cargo was 4.24 million TEUs. 90% of total cargo transported by sea .The main commodities handled are POL, Iron , Ore , Coal ,containers and general cargo.
Containerization has steadily progressed in the last decade .The volume of container trade was 3.34 million TEU in 2002 and 3.9 million TEU in 2004.
The current capacity provided by at Indian major ports for container traffic is estimated to be about 4 million TEUs.As the container traffic for the year 2004-2005 is provisionally assessed at 4.2 million TEUs ,the traffic has already exceeded the available capacity .when we add the container traffic handled at Mundra and Pipavav ports in Gujarat the total container traffic handled at Indian ports comes to about 405 million TEUs.This was the reason why most container terminals at Indian major ports experienced congestion in the current financial year .The two additional terminals expected to be created at the JN port as the third and fourth terminal are likely to enhance the total container handling capacity to about 4.5 million TEUs by 2010.
The Chennai container terminal expansion is likely to result in the terminal capacity being enhanced to one million TEU by 2010.Capacity addition in Tuticorin terminal will enhance capacity upto half a million TEUs by 2010.The new Transshipment terminal at Cochin when it becomes partially operational can provide capacity upto half a million TEUs.Creation of container terminals in Kandla and Ennore ports and the capacities to be expanded at Vishakhapattanam ,Mormugoa, New Mangalore and the Paradeep at best can add another half a million TEUs.If all these developmental plans materialized before 2010 the total capacity may come to about 8 million TEUs still running short of the estimated container volume of 8.66 million TEUs by 2010.