DIFFERENTIATION STRATEGY FOR AN EMERGING PORT - A CASE OF KATTUPALLI PORT UNDER PPP MODEL IN INDIA

The Kattupalli port in Chennai, a greenfield port was established as a joint venture between Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) and Larsen and &Toubro (L&T) under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. This port was set up primarily to handle the increased volume of sea trade along the East Coast line of Tamilnadu and to be a modern gateway in the region. The two major ports, Chennai and Ennore located in the same region were choked with traffic and Kattupalli was expected to give some relief. The port was strategically designed to offer more sophisticated services in order to divert the traffic from the two adjacent ports. The port became operational in January 2013. At this juncture, this paper makes an attempt to evaluate the performance of this port since its establishment to assess if the unique features of this port have helped to attract customers and ease traffic in the region.