Visakhapatnam: The AP government has an ambitious plan to develop 14 ports along the 972-km coastline, but experts say that only four ports will be viable, going by the volume of traffic being handled by all the ports in the country and in the wake of capacity augmentation work going on in the state.
The 14 notified non-major ports are Bhavanapadu, Meghavaram, Kalingapatnam, Bheemunipatnam, Gangavaram, Nakkapalli, Kakinada SEZ, Kakinada, S.Yanam, Narsapur, Machilipatnam, Nizampatnam, Vadarevu and Krishnapatnam.
According to the Indian Ports Association, all Indian ports handled 972.63 million tonnes of cargo in 2013-14, of which major ports handled 555.50mt.
Vizag and Gangavaram port are handling 85 million tonnes and have started augmenting facilities to handle 200 million tonnes by 2020.
