To facilitate faster movement of cargo and boost coastal shipping, the Government has asked all the 12 major ports across the country to give priority berthing to commercial vessels.
The Government plans to increase cargo load by coastal shipping by at least four times to about 2,500 million tonnes by 2020. “Major ports shall accord priority berthing, at least on one berth, to dry bulk/general cargo coastal vessels to enable shippers to transport goods from one port in India to another port in India irrespective of origin and final destination of the cargo,” said a note from Ministry of Shipping.
“This would be in addition to dedicated berth, for handling of coastal thermal coal already existing in major ports,” the Ministry said. The Ministry directed the ports to accord priority berthing using “specific window to coastal container vessels.” The 12 major ports are Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Managlore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, VO Chidambarnar, Visakhapat-nam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) . They handle approximately 61 per cent of cargo traffic.
It has also undertaken a slew of steps to promote coastal shipping to tap global environment fund for creating additional capacities in the sector. Earlier this month, Shipping Secretary Vishwapati Trivedi had said that quick decisions in policy issues in the current political environment has given a push to the sector and efforts are on to tap the World Bank-managed Global Environment Fund (GEF) to promote coastal shipping.