India to spend Rs. 40,000 Crore on Port project by 2012

India aims to pour $60 billion into ports by 2020 under a drive to spur the fastest growth in more than two decades and ease bottlenecks stoking the highest inflation among major economies.

The target is part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's planned $1 trillion revamp of choked transport and power networks to achieve faster expansion.

The Indian government is relying partly on investment by companies such as DP World Ltd. and AP Moller-Maersk to lift capability at ports to 3.1 billion tonne by 2020 from 963 million tonne in 2010.

Port projects worth Rs10,300 crore are under construction or implementation as per the ministry data.

These projects involve the government and private enterprise, and include a Rs3,500 crore liquefied natural-gas terminal at Cochin in the south and the Rs1,460 crore development of berths and a terminal in Mumbai.

Some terminals are managed by foreign businesses, including APM Terminals, a unit of Maersk, Denmark's biggest company.

APM operates Gujarat Pipavav Port and a terminal at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai. Dubai-based DP World, the world’s fourth-largest port operator, has terminals at five locations from Mundra in the northwest to Cochin in the south.

Spending on ports may amount to Rs40,600 crore for the five-year period ending March 2012, less than half the original aim, according to the Planning Commission.

Even as obstacles remain, port investment is on course to jump 76% in the five years through March 2012 from 23,000 crore in the previous five-year period, planning commission data show. India's Maritime Agenda has set a spending goal of 2.77 lakh crore by 2020.