|
| 10-year maritime development programme on anvil: Govt |
| Press Trust of India / New Delhi Jun 22, 2010, 20:55 IST |
|
The government today said it will come up with a new 10-year plan to boost the country's shipping sector in two months.
The new plan will replace the existing over Rs 1 lakh-crore National Maritime Development Programme (NMDP), which constituted of a Rs 55,803-crore capacity enhancement scheme for major ports and a project for developing inland waterways with the remaining amount.
"We are doing an exercise to prepare a 10-year action plan for maritime development. It will be a new one and would be ready in about two months' time," Shipping Secretary K Mohandas told PTI.
"Details are being looked at, and the exercise has started," he said, when asked about the proposed investment in the new plan.
The new plan, with a 2020 deadline, will set new targets as the existing NMDP has been marred with delays.
NMDP, an ambitious programme conceived by the Shipping Ministry, envisaged taking the capacity of 12 major ports to 1 billion tonnes by March 2012 from the existing 574.77 MT.
However, the major ports could only achieve a measly 10 per cent of their capital expenditure target of Rs 55,803 crore to enhance tonnage capacity in the first three years of the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12).
As on March 31, 2010, only 50 projects of the 276 projects under NMDP stood completed, at an investment of Rs 5,717 crore.
As against the projection of 430.74 million tonnes' capacity addition at the end of the programme in 2012, the actual addition as on March 31, 2010, was a mere 55.88 million tonnes.
India currently has 13 major ports -- Kandla, Mumbai, Jawaharlal Nehru, Marmagao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Kolkata, Haldia,Paradip, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Tuticorin and Port Blair, besides 200 non-major ports. Port Blair was accorded the major port status last month.
While major ports are governed by the Central government, non-major ports fall under the ambit of state governments and private players.
Ports handle around 95 per cent of the country's total trade in terms of volume, and 70 per cent in terms of value. Of this, major ports account for 70 per cent of the total traffic.
The country's top auditor CAG had also pointed out the tardy progress in NMDP, stating that the country loses over Rs 1,400-crore maritime trade per annum due to poor infrastructure at major ports -- despite the over Rs 55,000 crore capacity augmentation programme that is underway.
Shipping Minister G K Vasan had recently said that given the vital role played by the shipping industry in the economic development of the nation, the government was committed to develop world-class infrastructure at ports.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Read Business news in |  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Content Guide
