Indian ports to work 365 days, 24 x 7

Indian ports to work 365 days, 24 x 7
P R Sanjai / Mumbai April 02, 2007
Imagine major ports of the country working round the clock, 24 hours X 365 days. Going by the action plan put forth by Ministry of Shipping (MoS), India's ports will have an undissrupted vessel handling operations schedule along with navigation and documentation from beginning of next year.

Shipping Secretary A K Mohapatra said that the government has prepared a draft report to reduce dwell time of the cargo at ports. The ministry has proposed series of measures to lower the dwell time of cargo at ports and has invited comments from the trade.

What is the dwell time? The duration of ships or cargo (including containers) which stays at the port for service is called dwell time. It means the time of cargo or container remains in a port terminal's in-transit storage area while awaiting shipment by vessels in exports or evacuation by rail or road in imports.

Dwell time of cargo and vessel broadly reflects the efficiency of the port. Thus measures adopted to reduce the dwell time have an influence on the efficiency of the port. Dwell time is high in India compared to other international ports like Port of Singapore or Port of Rotterdam.

The dwell time of dry bulk cargo is between 14-30 days while Indian major ports takes 38 days. Fortunately, the dwell time for containers at country's major ports' container terminals are comparable with the international ports.

International ports are backed by optimised business process flow complemented with electronic information exchange amongst the stakeholders by the latest in information technology, higher level of mechanisation, huge volumes of cargo and vessel traffic, intermodal connectivity and vast space for storage and processing.

So what how do we achieve less dwell time? The shipping ministry has proposed the round the clock comprehensive operations to ensure higher productivity and eliminate delays owing to restricted working hours and holidays. The government is planning to implement hot seat exchange system to eliminate time lost in shift change-overs and recess hours. The non working time is expected to reduce from 3 hours to half an hour each day. "For this government has set a deadline of 30 December 2007. Attractive VRS schemes have been extended to bring down the labour strength to optimum level.," adds a government official. The major ports have been advised to install the IT infrastructure for the exchange of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) messages with customs and other stakeholders. They have also asked to undertake study of their internal yard planning to enhance the efficiency of rail movement within the port.

"Synchronisation of the landside operations with the seaside operations such as optimising the rail operations and removal of road congestion within ports by efficient management of traffic flow have been designed," they add.

So what would it mean to the country? The reduction in dwell time will reduce the transportation cost of Indian goods that country's goods competitive in global markets. To add, the image of an efficient maritime infrastructure will enable the country to attract more of the maritime trade, thereby increasing the nation's share in the maritime trade. For ports? Any reduction in dwell time will increase the capacity of ports and help in the optimisation of port capacity. It will enable the ports to utilise the infrastructure better and efficiently. The turn round time for vessels will reduce thereby enable the port to attract and handle more vessels.

This will be a good deal for shippers as the reduction in the dwell time will directly reduce the transit time for the cargo that will lower the transportation cost as well as the inventory costs