Concentration of Indian Port System: 1970-1998

Abstract

Using data on traffic of the major ports of India as well as its coastal States, this paper provides comparisons by using Gini co-efficient and Theil's entropy among the major ports vis-a-vis maritime States in terms of port traffic concentration over time. It was found that among the major ports, the least concentrated port is Kand/a while port of Calcutta is the most concentrated. Moreover, out of nine coastal States, this paper has also found ports of Gujarat as the least concentrated and the ports of Kera/a are most concentrated. In general, a trend of decreasing concentration as well as rising competitiveness have been witnessed in the post-liberalisation period in India in both the cases.