Why Mundra Port stands out

In the video above, you witnessed MSC Anna, the largest container so far to reach Indian shores, dock at the Mundra port. This 99.98 m long ship — roughly the length of four football fields, with a huge capacity of 19,200 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) could not have docked at just about any port.

Why this port off the coast of Gujarat could is because Mundra Port is India’s first private port, the largest container port and also the largest commercial port, located on the northern shores of the Gulf of Kutch near Mundra, District Kutch, Gujarat. 

The port currently handles over 155 MT (the highest in India), which constitutes nearly 11% of India’s maritime cargo. The port also handles nearly 33% of India’s container traffic.

The port has 2,25,000 sq m of closed warehouses. It has 3,150,000 sq m of open storage yards for import or export cargo storage within the port premises.

The liquid terminal at the port consists of 97 tanks of different sizes and attributes with a total storage capacity of 4,25,000 kilolitres for storage of various liquid commodities.

Mundra port maybe big, but Adani is not a monopoly

It belongs to Gautam Adani, the richest businessman in India, who is under fire from the Congress-led opposition, a short seller and the press of the West.

But who gave Adani this port? Chimanbhai Patel of the Congress, who was the chief minister of Gujarat between 4 March 1990 and 17 February 1994 for the second time after the early 1970s.

Previously, the port used to be operated by the government-owned Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone Limited (MPSEZ).

After Adani took over, he expanded the facility into Adani Ports & SEZ Limited (APSEZ), which manages several ports. But hold it!

You're mistaken if the facts and figures make you believe Adani holds a monopoly of ports in India. The 11 operational ports/terminals run by APSEZ have a combined capacity of 580 mt while the actual cargo handled by these facilities was 336.6 mt in FY23 or 24% of the total Indian cargo.

The 12 ports owned by the union government have a combined capacity of 1,597.59 mt handled in the same year 783.5 mt of cargo with a market share of 55% across India.

From the point of view of end-use consumers, APSEZ handled 8.6 million TEUs in FY23 or 42.5% of India’s container market share.

Whereas the government ports handled 11.391 million TEUs, the majority percentage. So, what’s the brouhaha about?