Jawaharlal Nehru Port will become smart port next says the Ports Minister

The Port and Shipping Ministry plans to develop the country’s premier container port Jawaharlal Nehru Port as a fully smart port within one year, Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said on May 25th.

Speaking at the 34th anniversary and annual award distribution ceremony of the JNPA, the Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways said the government wants the port leader among the public sector ports to compete with the best ports in the world.

“The government will develop JNPA into a fully smart port within one year. We want it to be a fully electronically connected system for better services,” the minister said.

The brain storming session organized by the Ports Ministry at Munnar last week decided that Jawaharlal Nehru port and VOC Port Tuticorin near the land’s end will be made Smart ports. The minister however did not make a mention of Ministry’s plan for making VOC Port Tuticorin into a Smart Port

The Minister however said they have plans are to develop all major ports in the country into smart ports going forward. “This is to match these facilities with the best ports globally,” he added.

The minister said that as part of the government’s objective of green ports, JNPA will be placing orders in the next three months for setting up of two green parks at its facility. “We will be developing green parks at all airports in the country,” Sonowal said.

He also said that Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) has seen 29 industrial units coming up in its SEZ (Special Economic Zone) under the Sagar mala Project. The SEZ project at JNPA is part of the port-led industrialisation plan, developed on 277.38 hectares of freehold land by the JN Port, incorporating the land use plan of the port.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority posted record growth in container traffic at 6.05 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in FY23, a growth of 6.4 per cent year-on-year.