Hamara Sankalp Viksit Bharat Series | 4. India pursuit towards Maritime Makeover ?

Dear Friends,

Bharat has made a Transformational Stride in last 10 years under the visionary & pragmatic leadership of Narendra Modi and it has now carried out an in-depth analysis during his 3rd term about the mis-opportunities during the same so that there remains no areas on concern rather potential where it has to bounce back and catch up with the global competition. There are quite a few in that category those are extremely crucial to make this nation A Viksit Bharat by 2047 and they are manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing rather creating an entire semiconductor eco-system and so is the shipbuilding for the maritime trade where Bharat lacks badly. At present China is ahead with nearly 47% of global share in merchant vessel manufacturing followed by South Korea with 29 % & Japan with 17 % share and Bharat stand way behind at 17th position globally with just negligible share i.e. only 0.07%. In spite Bharat having a 5000 years old ship building legacy it has only 1530 merchant vessels with nearly 13.7 million gross tonnage capacity which is only 1.2 % of total tonnage capacity of about 1,00,000 ships that are operating at high seas. Another contrast is that Bharat meets only 5% of its ship bound trade with its flag ship vessels and it is paying nearly $80 billion annually in hiring foreign vessels to meets its maritime trade. Though, it is late but still in time and with that aim in mind not only to catch up but to be among the first 05 merchant ship building nations by 2035 is indeed an ambitious initiative of Bharat and Narendra Modi has focusing on it by according top most priority. The Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Mr. Sarbananda Sonowal has already declared that South Korea and Japan big companies of Merchant Ships Building are showing a keen interest and a high level delegation has already done a study tour of such mega facilities and working out negotiations that how this partnership could be started at the earliest. Bharat is offering a subsidy of 20% on such manufacturing efforts in collaboration making these big vessels in Bharat Shipyards. It is a golden opportunity as Bharat has about 13 such shipyards that could undertake ship building in collaboration of big / heavy ship construction companies from South Korea & Japan as world over such facilities are over booked till end of 2028. The front runners in this pursuit, the Bharat shipyards in line are Kochi shipyard, L&T, Goa's Chowgule % Co, Chennai based Tebma shipyards, ABG & Bharti Shipyard (though both these have undergone liquidation so needs to be revived) and Swan Energy that has acquired Anil Ambani owned (RNEL) Pippav Shipyard as it has biggest Dry-Dock and so is the case about KSL as it has made a new dry-dock with a massive expenditure of Rs. 1500 crore, though the KSL earns 70% of its revenue in manufacturing ships for Indian Navy. The defense shipyards that are MDL, GRSE, HSL, GSL and also CSL are heavily booked for manufacturing Indian Navy Ships for next two decades or more as having an ambitious plan to have 250 plus warships for Indian Navy by 2047 but CSL has now some spare capability with new dry dock that could be used. The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways is also planning to extend the subsidy up to 30% in green fuel ship building. Maharashtra, Gujarat, Orrisa and AP has shown interest to take up this challenge and are keen to extend all the facilities

In my recommendation that a high level committee of experts may be drawn from each shipyards and Indian Navy so that to arrive that how the existing capacity available in Bharat could be Optimizely utilized in making such big vessels at a very fast pace with no compromise on quality and latest technology induction along with green energy transition efforts. CSL and Swan Energy owned biggest dry-dock yard facilities could be used for the construction of biggest tonnage vessels at the earliest but challenge is that how fast the skilling manpower could be developed and what all the needed cutting edge technology facilities could be created at the earliest. So, this ambitious initiative shall be monitored by a team in real time at Ministry of Shipping as well as PMO as it must not slip on time lines. The way Bharat could achieve many successes in last 10 years I am sure that Bharat could deliver in this aim also. The efforts must be made to revive ABG & Bharati shipyards also to make use of them. The initial financial assistance to these selected shipyards in terms of subsidy or like PLI assistance could be extended by the government.

In this respect I would like to draw an attention that GoI has already finalized a plan to invest Rs.57,000 crores in building mega ship building facility with Rs. 27,000 cr investment at Kanda Port along with 50% capacity expansion of the port in cargo handling with Rs.30,000 cr investment. This shall also have a mega Repairs & Refit Facility / Hub for all kind of Merchant Vessels. This port will have 01 MW hydrogen technology demonstration plant also. It has been announced by the Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways yesterday itself. My recommendations are that if CSL along with Swan Energy are also extended the needed financial assistance to deliver two big merchant ships in a time bound manner and at least for 01 big vessel to be given to L&T and also to a defense shipyard that could deliver with out affecting the ongoing Indian Navy shipbuilding programmes.

My aim writing this article is that it is one area where exists a huge opportunity for Bharat to exploit as a growth engine and to have a better control on our supply chains as well as saving a lot of dollars annually.