To increase the coastal movement of cargo in the country, the Government has decided to provide a Green Channel facility at major ports for faster evacuation of coastal cargo.
The Centre has also directed major ports to provide priority berthing to coastal vessels to reduce waiting times of such vessels at major ports.In another major boost to the sector, which has been in shambles, the Government is also working on revising the norms for levying facilitation charges on shippers, which have had to pay light dues for navigational aids under the light House Act 1927.
The dues have so far been calculated by measuring each ship’s tonnage manually, which took a lot of time and increased transaction costs.“The big mother vessels were so far not encouraged to call on our coastline because of these charges, which would run into several lakhs of rupees at times and cause delays upsetting the shipment schedule,” said an official from the Ministry of Shipping.
“Under the revised norms, which are still to get a formal seal of approval, the container vessels will now be allowed to pay light dues to the customs authorities on the basis of per TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) instead of the earlier per-tonne method which made calculations elaborate,” said the official.
The Centre also working on shifting to an online payment mode through State Bank of India to make transactions simpler, paper free and transparent. “The Government is determined to shift cargo transport traffic from road and rail to water route,” said the official.Government says that cost of carriage by coastal shipping is Rs0.25 per tonne-km as compared to Rs1.20 by road and Rs0.60 by rail.
According to the Government figures, 90 per cent cent of the export-import (exim) cargo in India is transported through ships but the contribution of domestic cargo in it is only 10 per cent.The Government has also decided to launch the PM Jal Marg Yojna to boost domestic shipping industry.