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Twelve major ports in the country have handled 383.77 Million Tonnes (MT) of traffic during 2004-05, recording a growth of 11.30 % over 2003-04. This is the highest growth achieved by major ports during the last decade. The previous best was 10.74 % in 1996-97. The New Mangalore Port Trust has recorded the highest growth of 27.06 %, followed by Chennai Port Trust (19.33 %) and Paradip Port Trust (18.9%). In fact, all major ports recorded positive growth during 2004-05 over previous year’s performance.
The Union Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Thiru T R Baalu has congratulated the Port Trusts of 12 major ports for this achievement. “ I hope they will keep up the performance in 2005-06 and do even better,” he said.
With Visakhapatnam Port handling 50.15 MT of cargo during 2004-05, the cargo handled by any single major port in a year exceeded 50 MT for the first time. Total number of Twenty foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) handled by major ports crossed the 4 million mark. All core commodities except thermal coal recorded positive growth. Handling of coking coal showed the highest growth (57.6%) during the year followed by finished fertilizer (33.8%), iron ore (29.4%) and others.
NSD/BS
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