Shipping Ministry puts dollar-linked coastal tariff on hold

To promote coastal shipping, the government has put in abeyance its notification for the dollar-linked coastal tariff issued last year.
Promotion of coastal shipping has been one of the major objectives of the Ministry of Shipping, which has amended the 2005 scheme of concessions on coastal vessels and cargo / container related charges in September 2015.
"The amended instructions provide that restatement of rates for coastal vessels should take into account the exchange rate fluctuation of Indian rupee versus the US dollar so that vessel-related all coastal charges should not exceed 60 per cent of corresponding charges for other vessels, which was notified to TAMP," Shipping Ministry said in a statement.

However, the Traffic Authority for Major Ports (TAMP) has noted that the general revision of proposals for a few ports in restatement of coastal rates has resulted in steep increase in rates of coastal vessels / containers.
"Since this would seriously hamper the Ministry of Shipping's endeavour to promote coastal shipping as the transaction in coastal shipping/operations are entirely domestic and the tariff is collected in Indian rupee, the need to link the tariff to US Dollar and exchange rate fluctuations needs to be reviewed at length," the statement said.
Accordingly, the ministry has decided that till the time these issues are addressed, the instructions issued by ministry earlier for the dollar-linked tariff should be put in abeyance.

The statement said TAMP has been directed to appropriately prescribe the coastal cargo / container related charges at all major port trusts and private operators.