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India-EU sign agreement for improving JNPT and Tuticorin port

Ranvir Nayar in Paris

India and the European Union have entered into an agreement on maritime co-operation.

The agreement, which was signed by both sides last fortnight, involves renovation of the facilities at two Indian ports -- the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust near Bombay and the Tuticorin Port in Tamil Nadu.

The assistance is part of the EU-India Maritime Transport Project that was signed last November during the EU-India troika meeting in New Delhi, under which an MoU was also signed.

According to this document, the total project size would amount to 10 million Euros or $ 12 million. Of this, the EU will provide 8 million Euros or nearly $ 11 million as a grant over the next three years. The rest of the funding will be provided by the Government of India.

"The project aims at improving the efficiency of two major ports in India. And this is not just the efficiency of the port systems, but also things that go along with the port. The warehousing, the freight forwarding, the links with the hinterland. The project involves the entire intermodal transportation system and seeks to improve the efficiency of the entire chain,'' Wolfgang Elsner at the European Commission told rediff.com recently.

An Indian official says the agreement reflects Indian commitment towards liberalising the maritime business and the co-operation will greatly enhance the efficiency of Indian ports. "This agreement is part of our open transport policy. It will provide a tremendous opportunity and give India developed technology and experience,'' remarks an Indian official.

Elsner says after the signing of the MoU in November, the two sides have been busy working out the finer details including the choice of the sites for implementing the project. The site selection is important as both the JNPT and Tuticorin ports are fairly modern by Indian standards, but yet have great room for further improvements in the total systems management. The JNPT is the country's largest container port, handling a large chunk of container traffic headed out of or coming into western India.

Elsner says the container traffic section at both ports had been chosen to reflect the trends of global trade volumes.

"The world over, more and more trade is being conducted in containers. Everything is now getting containerised, moving away from bulk traffic. Hence, it is important for any port to look very seriously at the efficiency of its container terminals, their volume handling capacities and turnaround times. Hence, we decided to focus the project on container traffic management within the two ports,'' the EC official adds.

A large section of the project deals with the Electronic Data Interchange within the Indian ports systems. This is basically a system that uses electronic beepers to locate any container at any given point of time, whether it is on the high seas, in the berth, in the container terminal or being transported by rail or road to the hinterland.

Elsner hopes the project will act as a model and a catalyst for increasing the efficiency and productivity of Indian ports and contribute to an improved investment and trade environment in the Indian maritime sector.

Under the project, two cohesive port communities will be developed and all interdependent activities of its members will be harmonised. The project involves training of key port and customs officials in streamlining procedures, aimed at adoption of a customer oriented approach, simplification of procedures and reducing the burden of documentation.

"These three things today account for a large chunk of the ineffficiency at Indian ports. If we can tackle them properly, the port systems will improve tremendously,'' says a shipping official.

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