PORT DEVELOPMENT: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PORT TRAFFIC OF GUJARAT AND ITS HINTERLAND

The ports are nodal points that link the open economy with the global world andconsequently port development and economic development are closely related. Withthe developments in multimodal transport and port operations, the benefit of portspercolates even in non coastal areas in far hinterland. In 1990’s, India initiatedeconomic reforms emphasizing on international trade and since then, its internationaltrade has increased remarkably and almost 90% of India’s international merchandisetrade is handled by ports. In line with the initiatives of port development in India,Gujarat state has announced a separate port policy for port development as it hasvast hinterland of developing northern states of India generating large volume ofcargo for ports of Gujarat. This paper attempts to analyse the cargo traffic at ports ofGujarat in relation to the output (GSDP) of selected 8 states of India in its hinterland.Bi-variate Log Log Regression Model is applied to determine the relationshipbetween GSDP of 8 hinterland states and the volume of cargo traffic handled byports in Gujarat using the GSDP and Port Traffic data from 2011-2019. It is observedthat increase in output in the hinterland states leads to significant increase in cargotraffic at ports of Gujarat depicting that 1 % increase in GSDP of Gujarat, Rajasthan,Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi and Madhya Pradeshlead to on an average 0.39 % to 0.55 % of increase in cargo traffic at ports of Gujaratwhich implies that cargo traffic at ports of Gujarat is highly affected by output in itshinterland states in addition to the output of Gujarat..