Overcoming the COVID-19 Challenges, Steady surge in cargo handling at JNPT

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), India’s premier container port continued its steady surge in cargo handling with the easing of lockdown restrictions and pick up in the domestic economic activity. This progress indicates early signs of recovery which is very
significant during the ongoing pandemic which has affected business across India. Despite the various challenges faced, JNPT handled a noteworthy 1,643,784 TEUs and 694 vessels in the lockdown period till 31 st August 2020. After facing a drop of over 35% in cargo handling in the initial lockdown period, slowly the decline has come down to 16.61% in August as compared to August 2019 and the Port is trying to reach its pre Covid performance levels and the numbers reaffirms that JNPT will maintain this growth trajectory. From the start, JNPT took a host of measures for the stakeholders, port employees, shipping lines, and the local community. These timely measures have helped the port in improving its numbers month on month and. JN Port registered a throughput of 3,52,735 TEUs in container handling in Aug 2020 as against 3,44,316 TEUs handled in July 2020. The overall traffic handled at JNPT during the month of August-2020 was 4.74 million tons as against 5.68 million tons in Aug-2019. Shri Sanjay Sethi, IAS, Chairman, JNPT said, “Ports are an important link in the logistic chain and JNPort has efficiently played this role during the last couple of months and after facing steep contraction, is now on the road to recovery. At JNPT, we have taken various steps to keep the Port Ecosystem functional and for smooth working of the Logistic Supply Chain during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, which has helped our cause. Also by converting JNPT Hospital as Dedicated Covid Health Care Centre, we are trying to do our best in helping the local community to come out of this crisis”.