Currently, the average turnaround time for a ship at an Indian port is 48 hours, against less than half a day at top trading hubs like Hong Kong. The idea in the Indian government is to narrow this gap as much as possible, the person cited above said. Ships idling at ports raises costs for shipping lines, which translates into shipment delays and higher transport costs.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said at the HT Leadership Summit 2025 earlier this month that reforming India’s customs duty regime by lowering rates on selected goods, increasing transparency, and reducing officials’ discretion will be the next major economic reform push.
As per official data, India has significantly improved its average turnaround time for vessels from about 93 hours in 2013-14 to about two days in 2023-24 with Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Nhava Sheva, Navi Mumbai leading the pack with 26 hours.
The improvement in Jawaharlal Nehru Port’s performance in post-covid years was noted in a World Bank report in September on container port performance. “The port’s CPPI values were 66 (2020), 62 (2021), 35 (2022), 48 (2023), and 100 (2024). This upward trend reflects the addition of terminal capacity and process reforms that have reduced turnaround and dwell times,” noted the report, put together with S&P Global Market Intelligence.
CPPI, short for container port performance index, measures time performance compared to the global average with zero set at the average. The Navi Mumbai port was ranked 10th among global ports by pace of improvement in performance between 2020 and 2024.
