Shipping Ministry to give 'fresh look' at PPP projects

The Union Shipping Ministry’s main focus in its 100-day plan is to give boost public private partnership (PPP) projects at Indian ports, said Union Minister of Shipping G K Vasan. “There is no going back on the Sethu Samudram project,” the Minister said.

Speaking to reporters in Chennai after announcing Indian Maritime University results in Chennai on Saturday the Minister said “the ministry will give a fresh look” at the PPP projects that are to be implemented at various ports. The programme is to be announced in New Delhi on July 1.

The Ministry earlier had set a target to increase the cargo handling capacity across 12 major ports by two folds to reach 1.5 billion metric tonnes (MT) by the year 2012. This will be achieved at an investment of around $ 25 billion through public-private partnerships.

 

“The experience of operating berths through PPPs at some of the major ports in India has been quite successful. It has, therefore, been decided to expand the programme and allocate new berths to be constructed through PPPs. A model concession agreement is being formulated for this purpose.”

As far as the ports sector is concerned, only six berths of a target for awarding 52 berths between 2006 and 2011 could be awarded so far. These new berths at 12 state-owned major ports are to be constructed through the PPP mode. This would mean bringing in investment of over Rs 25,000 crore in the ports sector under the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode.

The state PPP projects under Ports and Transport segments totalling Rs 1,33,625.22 crore can prove out to be a real advantage for India to achieve a healthy growth rate in GDP for FY2009-10. If implemented timely, they would serve as an economic stimulant in every respect as the earlier announced fiscal stimulus by the government, according to an Assocham Eco report.

At present, India is in 20th position in shipping trade in the international arena and steps would be taken to improve the position, said Vasan.

Commenting on the Sethu Samudram project Vasan said, “We are waiting for the Supreme Court’s verdict, which is expected after the submission of the Pachauri Committee report. There was no going back on the project, which would give a boost to industrial development of the southern States.”

Earlier, the Minister released the merit list of common entrance test conducted by the Indian Maritime University . The CET was conducted by the university for the first time to admit students to BSc (Nautical Science), BE ( Maritime Engineering), BTech (Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering), MBA in Shipping and Port Management and MBA in International Transportation. Of the 7,000 students who took the CET for all courses, 4,155 have been short-listed. Counselling for candidates, who had cleared the CET, would be held between July 8 and 15 at the IMU headquarters here.