Terming as inadequate the fast growth in the port sector to meet India's rapidly growing foreign trade, the Economic Survey on Friday asked the government to decongest leading ports like Jawaharlal Nehru port in Navi Mumbai and improve rail and road connectivity of others.

Noting that ports recorded an impressive 11 per cent growth in cargo handling during April-December 2004 on top of a significant 10 per cent growth in the previous fiscal, the Survey said the sector has show sharp improvement in efficiency parameters through new kinds of contracting.

Economic Survey 2004-05: Complete Coverage

But recent congestion problems at JNPT have demonstrated much more work needs to be done in crafting an adequate policy framework, it said.

"This requires a fresh examination of questions of port connectivity through rail and road, and international benchmarking on performance parameters and price," the pre-Budget report card of the economy said.

India has experienced, and will continue to experience, high growth rates of international trade. The growth of ports needs to be planned in a futuristic way, reflecting projections for traffic rather than meeting existing needs, so as to ensure that India's needs are adequately met, it said.

"While container traffic has grown well in India, there is still a considerable lag when compared with the larger international ports," it said.

The largest port in the world in 2003, Hong Kong, processed 20.1 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units). The 10th largest port, Antwerp, processed 5.4 million TEUs. In contrast Jawaharlal Nehru Port, India's largest container port, handled roughly 2 million TEUs in 2002-03 and 2.3 million TEUs in 2003-04.

JNPT, the survey said, had experienced a worsening of both the average pre-berthing time (from 9.36 hours in 2003-04 to 10.56 hours in April-December this fiscal) and the average turnaround time (2.04 days in 2003-04 to 2.32 days in April-December 2003-05).