Coastal Shipping : A Better way to transport in 21st Century Specially in India | Dheeraj Gupta

Coastal Line : Hidden Treasure for India

India having a long coastline, Stretching 7517 kilometres, served by 13 major ports (12 government and 1 corporate) and 187 notified minor and intermediate ports.?

These ports account for nearly 90% (by volume) of India’s international trade. Yet, coastal shipping accounts for only 6 per?cent of the country’s overall domestic freight shipping is a complex and volatile industry?that is constantly navigating the many twists?and turns of the global economy.

Shipping Sector today encompasses the entire spectrum -?international shipping , coastal shipping and inland?waterways each charting its own navigational channels

The explosive economic growth as seen in India over the past decade?has led to congested roads and over burned railway network.?India has 4 million kms of roads, accounting for nearly 60% of the?domestic traffic of which the National Highways’, which are 1.7% of?the network, carry as much as 40% of the road freight.?The Indian Railway network, one of the largest in the world is?overburdened and operating at over 100% utilization. While there?are numerous pro-jects for up gradation are under way. ?These projects are unlikely to keep pace and meet the future demand.

Unlike road transport, however coastal shipping can only be a link in a multimodal transport chain. For coastal shipping to be viable, the multimodal chain as a whole including the land legs should be efficient and cost effective, a fact that is sometimes lost sight of. The India story will continue for quite some time to come and our economy will grow at a fast clip. However, road capacity is likely to be in short supply in the foreseeable future. Coastal waterways could help fill the gap.

It is thus imperative that we divert freight from road to coastal Waterways.

?Congestion of Roads and Railways:

?The explosive economic growth witnessed in India since the turn of the century has lead to congested roads and railways struggling to cope with ever increasing traffic.

India has over 4 million km of roads, the second largest network in the world. Some 65% of domestic freight is moved by road. Yet most of our roads are narrow and unsurfaced. National Highways, which are motorable with relatively greater ease account for a mere

1.7% of the network but carry as much as 40% of road freight. The Indian railway network too is one of the world’s largest, with 115,000 km of track over a route of 65,000 km and 7,500 stations. The railways carry 30% of domestic freight annually. However, the network is overburdened, the condition of bridges en route poor and signalling systems outdated, restricting average train speeds to around 30 kmph.

There are various ambitious projects for expansion and upgradation of roads and rail networks are under way. The National Highways Development Project has just seen the completion of the Golden Quadrilateral. The North-South and East-West Corridors are under implementation and further development is planned. The National Rail Vikas Yojana, a massive railway development plan aims at reducing capacity bottlenecks, providing rail based port connectivity, constructing mega bridges and developing multimodal transport corridors. Six dedicated freight corridors are on the anvil. These road and rail projects are, however, unlikely to keep pace with and adequately meet the challenge of economic growth in the foreseeable future.

Studies have shown that the cost of transporting goods in containers from North India to South India and vice-versa can be reduced by as much as 40-50% at comparable transit times by using the multi-modal combination of rail and sea. All these factors indicate that coastal shipping has a potential area for heavy investment in the future Carriage of cargo by coastal ship has several inherent advantages over road and even rail. It conserves energy, since ships are more fuel efficient than trucks. It is safer. Ships pollute the air a lot less than trucks.

?Coastal shipping also reduces congestion on land and can cater to huge parcel sizes. It is estimated that coastal cargo movement in India will continue to increase. This will increase demand for coastal shipbuilding and ship repair. Domestic coastal trade is likely to assume more importance due to the slowdown in global (overseas) trade and shipping.

?Future Hope :

(Pic Credit - Social Media Page of The Daily Switch)

Despite the global downturn, Indian domestic trade is expected to remain strong and coastal shipping will retain its strong potential. According to the Government’s 11th five year plan, coastal shipping will proved revenue worth Rs 190 crores via ship repairs alone.

?The future growth of port sector in India, including those of private minor ports, hinges alot on coastal movement and inland waterways, even though the same may not be obvious today. The rail capacity constraint across India is the right trigger for growth of this sector. Ports have to build capacities in future for coastal cargoes with its own dynamics, being different from EXIM trade.

Planning Commission has approved a Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) (at current prices) of Rs 6,960 crore for the Ministry of Shipping for the 12th Plan period. This implies a 108.5% increase in GBS allocation to the Ministry during the current Plan compared to 11th Plan allocation of Rs. 3337.58 crore. Out of GBS of Rs 6960.00 crore approved by Planning Commission, the share of Ports, Shipping and IWT sectors are Rs. 3057.47 crore, Rs. 2402.53 crore and Rs. 1500.00 crore respectively.

?About Author:

Dheeraj Gupta, Logistics Professional, B.Tech( Mech. AMIE) MBA (Operations) having rich experience of 15 years while associating with Project Logistics Management for various Domestics & International Power, Renewable Energy, Refinery and Petrochemical Construction Projects.

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