Indian’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced new initiatives to ”revive and restore India’s position of eminence in the global maritime sector” during his speech at the first Maritime India Summit (MIS) 2016.
”Imust mention that our vast coastline of 7500 kilometers offers a huge investment opportunity. Apart from the length of the coastline, India’s maritime potential also lies in its strategic location on all major shipping highways. In addition, we have an expansive and productive hinterland, through which flows a network of mighty rivers. Our maritime agenda will complement this ambitious infrastructure plan for the hinterland which is going on in parallel.” said Mr Modi.
”I call upon the global business community to partner with us to give shape to our process of port led development. I am sure,the long coastline of India along with diverse coastal regions and hard working coastal communities can become an engine of growth of India.” Mr Modi state
To enable the growth of the port and related sectors, the Indian Government has carried out several reforms and taken a number of new initiatives:
- Under ‘Make in India’ approach, the Government has taken many steps to make India a global manufacturing hub;
- Recently MOODY’s has appreciated the Make in India initiative;
- They have done a lot of corrections on the front of Ease of doing business – they have jumped up 12 ranks in World Bank’s ranking;
- A lot of simplification has happened in the processes for cross border trade;
- They have greatly liberalized the licensing regimes; This also includes the defence sector and ship building therein;
- They have taken almost sixty per cent of the defence items out of the licensing process
- Most of the FDI sectors are now put on automatic approval route;
- Shipyards are being given Infrastructure status; at par with the ports;
- Rebate of service tax on coastal shipping has been increased to seventy per cent;
- They have granted customs duty and central excise exemption on inputs used in ship building;
- A scheme of financial assistance to promote ship building has been approved;
- Customs and central excise duties have been exempted on bunker fuel for Indian flagged container ships;
- Tax issues of sea farers have been resolved;
- A new company by the name of Indian Port Rail Corporation, has been established to focus on the last mile connectivity to ports.
- They have enacted a legislation for declaring one hundred and eleven waterways as National Waterways-1.
- They have taken up skill development activities aggressively.
Also, the Prime Minister announced the results of government’s initial efforts for growth in the country:
- FDI inflows have gone up by 44 per cent since this government took over. In fact, the year 2015-16 has seen the highest ever FDI inflow into India;
- India’s highest ever quantity of cargo handled by major ports was in 2015;
- The port efficiency parameters have shown very good improvement;
- India’s fastest average turnaround time in ports was in 2015;
- In the last two years, our Major Ports have added 165 million tonne capacity with record additions each year;
- 94 million tonne capacity was added by these ports in 2015-16 alone which is the highest ever;
- The traffic in Major Ports has shown a healthy growth of more than four per cent in the last two years, despite global slowdown;
- The performance of the Major Ports in the last two years has been remarkable;
- Operating Profit margins which were declining, have increased;
- In 2015-16 alone, the operating profit of the twelve Major Ports has increased by nearly 6.7 billion rupees;
- During 2015-16, Kandla Port in Gujarat breached the one hundred million traffic landmark and displayed twenty per cent improvement in efficiency.
- Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust registered a net profit of ten billion rupees helped by a twelve per cent increase in efficiency.
- Our flagship companies like the Shipping Corporation, Dredging Corporation and the Cochin Shipyard have registered higher profits as compared to the previous year.
Source: pib.nic.in