rail port and irrigation

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Management of Ports

For a better understanding of the issues at hand, in this section a short overview is given of the

current structure of the Indian port sector. All ports (Major and Non Major Ports) are regulated under the

Indian Ports Act, 1908. The Act defines the jurisdiction of Central and State Governments over all portsin the country. It lays down general rules for safety of shipping and conservation of port facilities. It

regulates matters pertaining to the administration of port dues, pilotage fees and other charges.

India has 13 Major Ports and approximately 185 Minor Ports (various names are used: non-Major

Ports, Minor Ports, intermediate ports, State ports as well as private ports) located in nine Maritime

States. There is one port (Ennore, a satellite port of Chennai) which has been corporatized and

incorporated in 1999 under the Companies Act, 1956. Two thirds of its shares of this port are owned by

the Government of India, one third by the Chennai Port Trust. The other ports, including the latest

addition: Port Blair on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, are structured as trust ports under the Major

Port Trusts Act, 1963, functioning as (semi) autonomous bodies under the administrative control of the

Ministry of Shipping

The following ports are Major Ports: Kolkata, Paradip, Visakhapatnam, Ennore (corporatized),

Chennai, Tuticorin, Cochin, New Mangalore, Mormugao, Jawaharlal Nehru Port, Mumbai, Kandla and

Port Blair. Major Ports are placed on the Union list of the Indian Constitution; moreover the Central

Government may declare any port in India a Major Port by notification in the Official Gazette.

Under the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963, each port is governed by a Board of Trustees nominated by the

Central Government.

Chairperson to be appointed by the Central Government;

Deputy Chairperson, if the Central Government deems it fit to appoint one.

such number of other Trustees, not exceeding seventeen, as that the Central Government may deem

expedient to be appointed by that Government from amongst persons who are in its opinion capable of

representing,-

(i) labour employed in the port;

(ii) Government of the State in which the port is situated;

(iii) Government departments specified; and

(iv) Such other interests as, in the opinion of the Central Government, ought to be represented

on the Board.


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The Boards of Trustees are fully controlled by the Central Government while their members are in

principle selected to represent various interests. The Trustees have to follow the policy decisions of the

Central Government while their financial powers are limited. Port dues and port and terminal services

rates are externally fixed by TAMP. There is a ceiling for capital expenditures; amounts above such

ceiling have to be approved by the Central Government.

Management of Minor Port

Pursuant to the Indian Ports Act, 1908 the responsibility for the development of so called Minor

Ports in one of the Maritime States of India vests with the concerned State Government. No permission is

required from the Central Government to establish a Minor Port. They are placed in the Concurrent list of

the Constitution and are administered under the Indian Ports Act, 1908. The nine maritime states control

some 185 State ports and jetties, of which some sixty are truly operational. Most States have established

so called Maritime Boards.

At the State level, the State Maritime Boards are responsible for formulation of water front

development policies and plans, regulating and overseeing the management of Minor Ports, attracting

private investment in the development of such ports, enforcing environmental protection standards, etc.

For the Maritime States the Maritime Boards have become the dominant public port management

model. The Maritime Boards have their legal basis in various State Acts such as the Gujarat Maritime

Board Act, 1981 (the first Maritime Board in India) and the Tamil Nadu Maritime Board Act, 1995. The

Maritime Boards are in charge of all Minor Ports in their State; they administer, control, regulate and

manage the Minor Ports in the concerned State.

Typical tasks of a Maritime Board are as follows (example Tamil Nadu):

1) Framing of Rules for administration and operation of ports.

2) To levy port dues and other charges.

3) To provide necessary infrastructure facilities for landing and shipping of cargoes, etc. and to maintain

adequate depth in the channel for safe navigation.

4) Declaration of port limits and landing places at the ports.

5) Rendering pilotage services.

6) Detaining Un-Seaworthy ships.

7) Issuing Certificate of Entry and Clearance.


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8) Affording assistance for communication between shore and ship with Very High Frequency (VHF) /

Morse / Flag Signals.

9) Rendering assistance to vessels in distress.

10) Conducting preliminary enquiries into wrecks and casualties.

11) Issuing pilot licenses for private pilotage at the Minor Ports in Tamil Nadu.

HR issues in the Railway

Human Resource Management

The main focus during the Eleventh plan is to improve the ratio of skilled workforce to the

unskilled. The capital outlay for human resource management will be Rs. 700 crores. Out of this Rs. 200

crores will be utilized for additional training infrastructure, and Rs. 300 crores for development and

provision of supervisory development programes, acquisition of simulators and other such machines for

training, development of model rooms and laboratories. For the benefit of the staff and greater

transparency in the administration, touch screen kiosks with service related information would be

provided at an estimated cost of Rs. 200 crores.

The revenue budget for training would be pegged at Rs. 850 crores as compared to Rs.660 crores

provided in the Tenth five-year plan. The resources will be used to provide elearning modules, customer

care training for front line staff including RPF, supervisory development skills, and organizational

development and management development initiatives. During the Eleventh five-year plan the annual

recruitment is expected to be about 25000 per year.

Low Motivation

Corrupt Practices followed

Caste Biased

Recommendations

No Performance Appraisal

Promotion based on seniority


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No proper training

No Proper IT Facilities & R&D

Problems facing the irrigation sector

1. Water logging and salinity

In agricultural point of view, Water logging of land is a situation of adverse air water proportion in

the sub soil root zone (MoWR 1999). Primary reasons for water logging are over irrigation, lack of

conjunctive irrigation, seepage from canals and irrigation channels. Farmers with their lands in head

reaches of a command area are more susceptible to the problem of water logging and as a result, salinity

(Chambers, 1989). Farmers have become poorer owing to these growing problems. The Working Group

constituted by the Ministry of Water Resources in 1991 estimated that about 2.46 million ha suffered

from water logging, and another 3.30 million ha affected by salinity/alkalinity in the irrigated commands

(GoI, 1997). Thus, 5.76 million ha of irrigated lands are facing with declining crop productivity levels.

2. Displacement and Rehabilitation

The process of nation building has led to large scale development works in India. But in the process

large scale displacement of people took place. Development projects, particularly dams have tended to be

a major source of displacements related conflicts. According to a set of figures provided by the Indian

social Institute, of the total 21.3 million developments induced internally displaced people nearly 16.4

million were displaced by dams. Another study of 54 large dams done by the Indian Institute of Public

Administration concluded that the average number of people displaced by a large dam is 44,182. The

recent turmoil over the Narmada valley project and the Tehri dam project in Uttaranchal led to hundreds

of people leaving their homes and livelihoods are the best examples.

Developments projects are usually located in remote villages, hills and forests. This means that those

displaced tend to be the indigenous and tribal people who have been the traditional agents of conservation

of environment and habitats. Thus displacement in this context means a loss of livelihood, habitat and

assets, physical and mental dislocation, social disruption and disorder and severance fro an ecosystem that

for generations had sustained them. In order to deal with the displacement issue government should


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consider rehabilitation as a priority over development measures. Adequate compensation should be made

available for the displaced.

3. Declining Water use efficiency

Water use efficiency is presently estimated to be only 38 to 40% for canal irrigation and about 60%

for ground water irrigation schemes. On the basis of 1991 census, our country's per capita water

availability per year was estimated at 2214 cubic meters against the global average of 9231 cubic meters.

Irrigation, being the major water user, its share in the total demand is bound to decrease from the present

83% to 74% due to more pressing and competing demands from other sectors by 2025 A.D. and as such,

the question of improving the present level of water use efficiency in general and for irrigation in

particular assumes a great significance in perspective water resource planning.

4. Inter sectoral Competition

Irrigation constitutes the main use of water and presently accounts for 84% of the total water

withdrawals. The share of per-capita withdrawals by the domestic and industrial sectors is one of the

lowest in the developing world (59 m3 per person in India compared to 132 m3 per person in China,

World Bank, 2005). Environmental water needs like minimum flow in the rivers, water for wetlands/

mangroves and recreation receives an even smaller share. However, with increasing urbanization and per-

capita demand, the water demands of domestic, industrial and other sectors are expected to increase and

become highly competitive with the irrigation sector. Contribution of public surface irrigation has been ondecline, due to inadequate dam storage capacities and poor maintenance of the public irrigation

infrastructure. The present and future total water requirements as assessed for various user sectors during

the period 2000, 2010 and 2025 is 634, 813 and1093 billion cubic meters respectively which are being

met and are planned to be met by surface water and ground water resources.

5. Under Utilization of water resources

The total received water resources at the national level sum up to about 4000 Km 3 and the total

available water resources amounts to 1953 Km3. It has been estimated that only 1122 Km3, of the

resource is utilizable. In other words, only 27 % of the total received resource can be gainfully

utilized. Of this amount, 690 Km3 is the utilizable surface water while 396 Km3 is the utilizable

groundwater. (Iyer, 2001). In the river Ganga, of the 525 Km3 average flows, only 250 Km3 can be

utilized (Ministry of water resources, 1999). The utilizability of water resources are less than the


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availability due to a number of reasons that range from topography to spatial and temporal variation

of the resource. If the river basin lacks suitable storage sites as in the Ganga, a large proportion of

surplus monsoon flows cannot be utilized.

Strategies for coping up these problems

To achieve the sustained irrigation development the following strategies are needed:

increasing the effective irrigation area through timely renovation and modernization of theirrigation and drainage systems, including reclamation of waterlogged and salinised irrigated lands

Per capita dam storage capacity in India is one of the lowest in the world and needs to besubstantially enhanced to offset the seasonal and long term resource availability fluctuations and

make efficient use of the available resources.

Inter-basin transfers of surplus water are most likely inevitable. The Government of India hasalready developed a National Integrated Water Development Plan and National River LinkingProject. These calls for the transfer of water from relatively water rich eastern (and possibly

northern) Himalayan Rivers to the deficit southern basins.

Enhance water productivity at all levels through field, farm, and command area and basin levelimprovements, reducing non beneficial evaporation losses, breeding drought/ flood tolerant andwater efficient cultivars and community participation in resource management shall help in demand

management of the resources.

Initiate effective steps for private partnership in distribution and management of water systems atall levels for irrigation, and domestic and industrial supplies. Price of water supplies must indicate its

scarcity value and subsidies (if any) should be targeted to the vulnerable sections of the society.

rail port and irrigation

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