Throughput at major ports in India grew by around 3 percent in the April-January period, amid indications that the slowdown in the country's export trade is affecting traffic growth.

The country's 12 gateway ports handled 436.7 million tons of cargo, compared to 424.3 million tons in the same period the previous year, according to data released by the Indian Ports Association.

Overall tonnage, however, fell short of the Shipping Ministry's target of 476.3 million tons set for the ten-month period.

Kandla topped cargo volume at 61.5 million tons, followed by Visakhapatnam, 53 million tons; Nehru, 48 million tons; Chennai, 46 million tons; Kolkata, 45 million tons, and Mumbai, 42.5 million tons.

Consolidated container traffic increased 2 percent to 5.6 million TEUs from 5.5 million TEUs.

Nehru, India's busiest box gateway, handled 3.36 million TEUs compared to 3.33 million TEUs, while volume at Mumbai declined to 83,975 TEUs from 93,621 TEUs.

Chennai, the second-largest container hub, handled 974,000 TEUs, up from 923,000 TEUs.