Statistics on turnaround time of ships in Indian ports

Turnaround time, the time taken by a ship to load or unload cargo in a port has seen significant improvement in Indian Ports. Over the past decade, the average turnaround time for the major ports has decreased by about 50 per cent. The average turnaround time for Indian ports declined from 4.3 days in 2012-13 to 2.1 days in 2022-23. This remarkable progress is also reflected in India’s improved ranking in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index.

Among the major ports, Jawaharlal Nehru Port had the lowest turnaround time of 1.2 days, followed by Cochin Port with 1.4 days, New Mangalore Port with 1.8 days, Kamarajar port near Chennai and Paradip port with 1.9 days.  In contrast,  Deendayal Port, Vishakhapatnam Port, and Mumbai Port, registered relatively longer turnaround times of 3.2 days, 3 days, and 2.8 days, respectively. Their performance remained tardy even in 2012-13.The respective figures for these ports were 6.3 days, 5.4 days, and 5.6 days, during that period

Indian ports still need to do more to catch up with our global peers. The global median ship turnaround time was 1.04 days in 2022. Norway had a median turnaround time of 0.4 days, Netherlands of 0.6 days, and Singapore of 0.8 days

Another metric to evaluate the overall efficiency of the international trade cargo clearance process is the average release time. This metric includes the end-to-end duration from the arrival to the departure of cargo from the port, encompassing all processes such as custom clearance, other regulatory clearances, dwell time and logistics. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has been providing data on this parameter through the National Time Release Survey since the past three years.

Average release time for Exports declined by 6.5 per cent in the last two years, from 7.8 days in 2021 to 7.3 days in 2023. Within the 7.3 days, only 0.8 days on average, was needed for getting the customs clearance. The remaining 6.5 days, which is close to 90 per cent of total time taken, was needed after getting the customs clearance. This indicates that, though the customs clearance happens really quickly for exports, it still takes an inordinate amount of time for the final departure of goods.  But corruption among the lower rung of the customs personnel continued to be rampant in both sea ports and air ports though they have introduced several business friendly measures as part of ease of doing business. It is time that the customs leadership put down the rampant corruption among the lower rung customs personnel industry sources said.

Despite the fact that the customs process is now taking little time on average, why is there is still a long longer time at the seaport?

The reason for this needed closer examination. One part of it is that the other processes at the seaports such as entry of the trucks at terminal premises, security clearances, loading of the cargo into vessels, take an inordinate time. This needs attention.