What does JNPT stand for?

‘JNPT’ stands for ‘Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust,’ and it is India’s biggest container port.  It is also called “Nhava Sheva” and is situated at the area near Navi Mumbai.  This particular port was originally developed to lessen the container port traffic in the main port of Mumbai.  With its location just across from the busy city of Mumbai, JNPT eventually became the largest in India in terms of container port terminals.

Officially and technically, JNPT is the company that operates the port in Nhava Sheva, and this particular company is owned in full by India’s own government.  It was said that the initial plans for JNPT’s development started back as early as 1965.  Back then, Nhava Sheva was planned to be the main port for the importation of food grains.  This initial plan didn’t materialize, though, because of the so-called Green Revolution in the country which resulted in various surpluses in the production of food grains.  More than two decades later, particularly in 1989, this port was then inaugurated to literally de-congest the activities at the main Mumbai port.  At the start of the port operations, JNPT was still a small container port, but it eventually grew larger and larger in terms of land area and operations.  To this day, the Nhava Sheva, or the JNPT, is India’s largest container port.

The total land area of the JNPT is almost 3,000 hectares, and the port is actually composed of 3-section terminals that are able to accept and handle container vans, cement ships, and also liquid bulk. With its huge size and operational capacity, JNPT accounts for more than half of India’s total container port handling statistics. Commonly exported materials that go through this huge container port terminal include: textiles, meat products, and chemicals.  Imported products, meanwhile, are mainly in the form of plastic materials, chemical products, machines and equipment, among many others. With its huge size and cargo handling capacity, JNPT is expected to handle up to 10 million tons of cargo in 3 to 4 years’ time.