Apart from witnessing a nearly 10 per cent growth, the major ports of India turned much more efficient in 2003-04.
The key performance indicators like turn-around time, daily output handled by a berth and pre-berth waiting time improved appreciably.
The average turn-around time for the major ports improved 7.93 per cent to 2.32 days, from 2.51 days recorded in the previous fiscal.
The ports also clocked a better pre-berth detention time of 5.54 hours, 14.9 per cent lower than 6.51 hours registered in 2002-03.
Jawharlal Nehru Port Trust's turn-around time improved 12.5 per cent at 1.68 days. The figure for container traffic was even lower at 1.56 days, which was 9.8 per cent better than 1.73 hours taken in the previous fiscal.
The government-operated container terminal at JNPT, however, continued to lag behind the Nhava Sheva Container terminal, operated by P&O.
The turn-around time for the former was 1.16 days, while for the private terminal it was only 0.98 days. Even in crane productivity, while the former averaged 21 crane moves per hour, NSICT recorded 14 crane moves per hour.
The average daily traffic handled by Nhava Sheva stood at at 1,663 TEUs and was 53 per cent higher than that handled by the government-operated container terminal.
However, Cochin and Murmagaon did not fare well. The turn-around time for Cochin increased 5.62 per cent and for Murmagaon 10.37 per cent. The pre-berth detention time for Cochin at 1.14 hours was thrice than that recorded in 2002-03.
In Murmagaon, the vessels in 2003-04 had to wait for 26.7 hours before docking on to the berth, which was 33.95 per cent greater than 19.94 hours taken during the previous fiscal.