Chennai, Dec 18 (IANS): To cater to the growing cargo traffic demand, the Indian government Saturday said it will increase capacity at the country's ports to 3,130 million tonnes from the current 870 million tonnes by 2020 through infrastructure development.

"The total traffic handled by Indian ports is expected to go up to around to 2,495 million tonnes by the year 2020. For the purpose of handling this volume of traffic, the capacity at the ports is expected to enhance to 3,130 million tonnes by 2020," Union Shipping Minister G.K. Vasan said in a statement.

According to Vasan, an investment of Rs.2.77 crore would be made in the next 10 years to create further capacity.

"The proposed investment during the next 10 years to create the expected capacity will be Rs.2.77 lakh crore," he said.

Indian ports handled a total cargo traffic of around 870 million tonnes in 2010-11, out of which major ports handled 570 million tonnes, and non-major ports handled around 300 million tones.