NEW DELHI: The Government has identified a pipeline of 81 public private partnership (PPP) projects worth Rs. 42,300 crore for developing berths and terminals across the Major Ports till 2024-25, Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal said recently.
“Our Ministry through various initiatives under the ambitious PM GatiShakti National Master Plan aims to provide systematic, multi modal connectivity to various economic zones for seamless movement of people, goods and services.”
The Shipping Ministry is identifying new alignment and upgradation of road and new rail projects which are essential for ports for movement of sizeable freight traffic in the future. There are 101 projects under GatiShakti worth Rs. 62,627 crore for implementation by 2024, of which 13 projects worth Rs. 565 crore are supported financially under Sagarmala scheme.
On National Logistics Policy (NLP) he said that it envisages creation of a single window e-logistics market to reduce logistics cost, to improve India's trade competitiveness, and to create more jobs and pave the way for India to become a logistics hub. Cargo movement through Inland Waterways and Coastal Shipping shall be enhanced to attain optimal Multimodal transport mix.
On financing such large scale projects, he said, “Public Private Partnership (PPP) is considered as an effective mode for attracting investment. Until now 86 projects at major ports worth Rs. 55,000 crore have been granted approval under PPP. To achieve large-scale investment target through PPP, asset monetisation was introduced. A robust pipeline of well-structured projects was introduced as National Monetisation Pipeline. The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has identified a pipeline of 81 PPP projects worth Rs. 42,300 crore till 2024-25 for developing berths and terminals across the Major Ports.
The PPP mode of investment in Indian ports has made a remarkable progress in the last 25 years, resulting in the capacity addition and productivity improvement. Now, Jawaharlal Nehru Port has become the first major port of the country to become 100% Landlord port having all berths being operated on PPP model. We are speedily moving towards landlord model of port operations and you can expect similar transformational changes like JNPA in other Major Ports also in the near future.”
