Shipping focus to shift to Pacific Rim

The shipping ministry has said the future of sea trade for India lies in the Pacific Rim countries "" China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand "" and not in the Atlantic, which is the traditional hub.

Deposing before the Parliamentary Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture headed by CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury, shipping secretary AK Mohapatra said shipping in the future would be east-bound.

"Now trade is not going to be Atlantic oriented. The future belongs to the Pacific Rim nations. If we take that kind of geo-strategic outlook and concentrate on the Pacific area, then, I am sure all these things will fall in line," said Mohapatra, referring to the many problems that have affected the sector in the country.

Mohapatra also said as per one estimate China had 3,300 ports while India had only 12 major ports and 187 minor ports.

India's total tonnage for major ports is 423 metric tonnes while the comparative figure for Shanghai alone is 443 metric tonnes.

He made these observations at a meeting of the committee last month. The report was tabled before Parliament on Monday. The committee said it was disturbed to note the shortfall in utilisation of funds by the department of shipping.

The department's budget estimate for 2005-06 was Rs 1,163.75 crore of which Rs 280.24 crore was gross budgetary support and Rs 883.21 crore was internal and extra budgetary resource provided for port development. Against this, the actual expenditure is estimated to be only Rs 668.33 crore.

"The committee feels that while proposing the plan outlay, the shipping department has not done strategic planning and observes that there is a mismatch in the physical and financial projections which is not explicable," the report added.