Two years on, maritime policy yet to take off

A development fund with a corpus of Rs 500 crore for inland water transport, development of national sea highways along the coastline, and a directorate general of ports "" these were a slew of measures outlined by the ministry of shipping about two years ago, under a proposed national maritime policy (NMP).

However, more than two years have gone by, and the proposed measures are yet to be part of a policy.

The draft of the policy was hosted on the ministry's website in August 2004. After taking inputs from various stakeholders, a modified draft of the NMP was again put up on the site in February 2005. The final draft of the policy is reportedly not prepared till now. Till this is done, the policy cannot be placed before the Cabinet.

While ministry officials refused to comment on the issue, sources say the delay in formlulating the policy has already killed the very spirit behind it""that of streamlining the maritime sector.

The plan to develop national sea highways along coastlines was aimed at solving the problems of dredging and inadequate draft availability in Indian ports. The plan outlines around Rs 3,000 crore in terms of budgetary support for this purpose, sources say.

The NMP also includes proposals for the development of inland water transport (IWT) segment. It suggests setting up of an IWT development fund, with a corpus of Rs 500 crore to provide finance on soft terms for the acquisition of inland vessels. Apart from this, it also suggests a dredging policy for inland water channels that needs to be prepared.

Inadequate infrastructural facilities like depth and width required for the movement of the IWT vessels round the year, constrains of terminals for loading and unloading of cargo, lack of proper navigational aids for safe navigation, inadequate IWT fleet for carriage of cargo and passengers, are some of the constraints faced by the IWT sector. In this context, the proposed steps would have given a major thrust to the sector.

Under the NMP, the government had also announced plans to set up a directorate general of ports under the department of shipping, to supervise the overall development of ports. Sources say the cost for establishing directorate general of ports are to be estimated and this could be another reason behind the policy's delay.

The proposed policy also envisaged a scheme for providing equity assistance of around Rs 100 crore for the development of minor ports.