Ministry seeks revival of coastal shipping rules

To give a fillip to the shipping industry, the ministry has asked the Union government to provide Rs500 crore to develop coastal shipping and revive a vessel building subsidy scheme. It plans to create a coastal shipping development fund, aimed at supporting concessional term loans from banks to buy coastal vessels.

The ministry also plans to revive an inland vessel building subsidy scheme, which ended in March 2007 after a five-year run. The scheme provided local inland water transport operators 30% subsidy on the ex-factory price of a cargo or passenger vessel bought from an Indian shipyard.

The ministry is looking to increase the share of coastal shipping in the country’s domestic trade to 15% by 2025, by investing about Rs10,000 crore.