New laws to revamp port sector, shipping industry
In an effort to revamp the shipping industry, the government is in the process of overhauling the existing laws related to ports and merchant shipping. To replace many of these archaic rules which have been enforced for more than 100 years, the Shipping Ministry will introduce a fresh set of laws in the parliament in the next six months. “Be it the major ports act, merchant shipping act, we are relooking at most of our acts some of which are more than 100 years old and we expect that in the next six months, we should be able to revamp and introduce in the parliament all the major acts which the ministry is concerned with, doing away with damp and so on,” said Rajive Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Shipping. Kumar was addressing an international summit on ‘Infrastructure Finance-Bridging the gap’ organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) in New Delhi on Thursday. On the issue of capacity enhancement of ports, Kumar said “We have studied about the mismatch in capacity, major ports are increasing their capacity through PPP projects and we hope that if we are able to increase our GDP growth to 9%, then too we will have enough capacity as even various private sector ports are doing a good job.” There is a huge scope in coastal movement of goods and in having capacities of cement, steel and other commodities, he added. Besides, the ministry is also in the process of decking up 106 new waterways where a large number of components for attracting investments are present. The Secretary also said that the Shipping Ministry was in the process for revising model concession agreement. He further said the government is also gearing up for the ambitious Sagarmala project which is expected to be ready by next month end. As part of the project aimed at developing coastal areas around ports, the government has aready earmarked Rs70,000 crore for the development of 12 major ports across the country. “Under the Sagarmala programme, for the first time in the country, we are getting a detailed study done of more than 80% of our total cargo, which will optimize on what should be our transportation mode and know that this number of 14 and 16% of the cost is substantially higher than what our economy can afford,” he added.
December 18, 2015 | 02:40pm IST
to success.