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The National Shipping Board has sent a proposal to the Union Shipping Ministry for introduction of an Indian Maritime Service (IMS).
A resolution was adopted here at the board meeting on Monday. The meeting was presided over by NSB Chairman PVK Mohan. Director-General of Shipping Gautam Chatterjee, Visakhapatnam Port Chairman RPS Kahlon, and others participated in it. The board recommended to the Ministry of Shipping to either constitute a committee or appoint a consultant to work out the modalities.
The IMS will be on the lines of all-India services such as the IAS and IPS. The move is expected to help overcome the dearth of professional administrators in the shipping industry. After the meeting, Mohan said the board had approved the proposal to acquire two training-cum-trading vessels — one tanker and another bulk carrier — for on-board training of cadets. The ships, which will cost Rs 350 crore, may be acquired with a one-time grant-in-aid. He told presspersons that the vessels would be kept under the control of the Indian Maritime University.
He said the meeting decided to ensure strict compliance with entry rules by non-major ports and regretted that many non-major ports were not adhering to the rules. Stating that NTPC, RINL and other public sector majors had responded positively to the slew of incentives announced by the Centre to shift cargo from rail and road to coastal shipping, he said at present only seven to eight per cent of domestic cargo was being handled by coastal shipping.
He said nine categories of industries including foodgrains, steel, cement and automobiles were making use of coastal shipping. He said of late PDS food grains were being transported from Kakinada to Kochi by coastal shipping instead of rail.
He said India had not made much headway in coastal shipping and said it was expected that Visakhapatnam may emerge a gateway for coastal shipping for transporting cargo to Haldia/Kolkata and from there to Chittagong and other parts of Bangladesh.
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