Merchant Fleet and Ports

India enjoys a stategic location in the Indian Ocean and has a vast coastline of around 7,000 kms. India has 14,500 km of waterways (ranked 9th in the world).

Eleven major ports along this coastline handle almost 95 percent of the the total traffic. With the advent of economic reforms, India's share in global trade is increasing. The upgradation and expansion of ports is being done to handle the growing volume of international trade that is expected. JNPT was the third fastest growing port in the world.

Major Merchant Fleets of the World, Jan 2003
Source: Maritime Administration, US Dept of Commerce
(tonnage in thousands)

	Country	No. of Ships	Gross DWT Tons
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16	Greece Japan China Norway Germany US Hong Kong S. Korea Taiwan Singapore Denmark UK Russia Italy Saudi Arabia India	2,915 2,722 2,033 1,075 2,024 890 551 755 516 611 551 508 1661 466 93 277	148,873 104,368 43,629 42,701 40,252 40,247 35,372 25,067 21,645 16,788 16,518 16,392 14,751 12,200 10,963 10,366

Note:
- Feets of ships totaling 1000 gross tons or more
- The ships could be flagged in other countries like Panama, Liberia etc.
- Includes combination and cargo ships and all other types of ships
- Excludes ships operating exclusively in inland lakes and waterways, channel ships, icebreakers, cable ships and merchant ships owned by military.
- Gross tonnage is a volume measurement and Deadweight (DWT) is the carrying capacity of the ship in long tons (2240 lbs)

Port Traffic
Eleven Major ports accounted for 95 percent of the total cargo handled and the rest was handled by 139 operable minor ports. The primary responsibility for development and management of major ports rests with the Central Government. Administration of minor ports is the responsibilityof the State Government.

The 11 major ports are:
· Mumbai Port
· New Mangalore Port
· Chennai Port
· Kandla Port
· Jawaharlal Nehru Port, Mumbai
· Mormugao Port
· Kochi Port
· Tuticorin Port
· Paradip Port
· Calcutta Port
· Visakhapatnam Port

As of 2007 April, there are 5 ports in India which handle more than 50 million tonnes of cargo annually viz. Kolkata port, Chennai port, Kandla port, Visakapatnam port and Mumbai port.

The commodity composition of traffic handled at major ports has undergone a substantial change indicating the growing industrialisation of the economy.

The annual traffic during 1996-97 was around 227 million tonnes and 390 million tonnes by 2000-01 and expected to be over 650 million tonnes by 2005-06. Traffic growth at Indian ports has been on the upswing over the last few years.

The total capacity of major ports is currently estimated at 215 million tonnes. Overall port capacity required to handle the projected traffic is to be 325 million tonnes in 2000-01 and estimated at 540 million tonnes in 2005-06. Additional capacity that needs to be commissioned to cater to the traffic is estimated to be 215 million tonnes during 2001-02 to 2005-06.