Andhra govt clears file on draft maritime board Bill

Chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy today cleared the file pertaining to the draft state maritime board Bill, which is expected to be sent for Centre's approval in the next couple of days.

With this, Andhra becomes the fourth state after Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, to have an autonomous board for the development and monitoring of non-major ports once the state legislative assembly passes the bill after the Centre's approval.

Though drafted on the lines of the Gujarat Maritime Board, the oldest among the existing three state-level boards in the country, the Andhra draft Bill contains new features that are included to suit the present day requirements and also based on the experience of its counterparts.

The government feels that a separate board in place would help develop the state ports at a much faster pace.

According to officials in the ports department, the draft Bill authorises the state government to declare, by a special notification, the area within 10-km radius of any non-major port for development according to a master plan.

The state has 12 minor ports with close to a 1000-km coastline of which three ports, namely, Kakinada, Gangavaram and Krishnapatnam are being developed with the private sector participation. Two more ports have been identified for private development.

The maritime board established under the proposed Bill can decide on its own the scale of rates applicable to ports developed by the board pending ratification by the state government.

However, the private port developers will have the freedom of determining their own scale of rates as per the concession agreements entered into with the state government, officials said.

The government consciously made this change owing to the experience of the maritime board in Gujarat, where an overseas developer is unwilling to enter into an agreement for the development of a port since the scale of rates has to be determined by the state government under its maritime board Act.

"Any private developer would be apprehensive of this clause because rates charged for ships and cargo handling would depend on several factors for which he seeks considerable flexibility in this regard," an official told Business Standard.

The draft Bill also proposes to authorise the magistrate to levy up to Rs 5 lakh penalty in case of violation of rules by ships, whereas the same is only up to Rs 5,000 in Gujarat.

While keeping all the existing service rules and conditions for the present employees working in ports intact, the draft Bill, however, authorises the board to newly employ any expert or an employee by framing its own rules, officials said.

The draft Bill proposes to settle all the disputes under the Government of India's arbitration law passed in 1996. In contrast, Gujarat legislation has laid out a separate procedure for dispute settlement in port related operations.

Though a special clause empowering the board to act like a single window clearance agency as in case of a development commissioner of an SEZ to give permissions required for port-based industry in non-SEZ areas was mooted earlier, it was dropped from the final draft Bill, according to Tishya Chatterjee, principal secretary of the state transport, roads & buildings department.

On the performance of non-major ports of India, while Gujarat with 32 minor ports stands first with handling 103 million tonnes during 2005-06, Andhra Pradesh stands second with 18.4 million tonnes. Private investments in AP ports amount to Rs 6,150 crore, according to an official statement.