India needs to open up dredging market: NITI

India needs to open up dredging market: NITI

News:

NITI Aayog suggest to open up India’s dredging market to boost ports trade

Facts:

• Currently major Indian ports cannot handle very large vessels in the absence of proper draft depth.
• More competition, mainly from global players, in dredging activities would help increase and maintain draft depth at ports and attract large vessels, enabling them to become hub ports.
• At present, the Dredging Corporation of India and a limited set of private vendors serve the Indian dredging market, limiting competition
• Foreign players will be attracted to the market if the government takes measures such as consolidating dredging contracts across cohorts of ports and withdrawing, at least temporarily, the right to first refusal given to Indian vendors
• To enable major ports to handle large vessels, the government has already made an action plan to increase the draft depth of ports.
• Most major ports have already achieved a draft depth of 14 meters or more except Kolkata Port, where deeper draft has not been feasible.
• Some major ports are striving to achieve deeper drafts up to 18 meters. The outer Harbour in Visakhapatnam has very deep draft of more than 18 meters. Work is in progress to create a draft of more than 18 meters in Mormugao and Kamarajar Port.

Additional Facts:

• India has 12 major ports — Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) which handle approximately 61 per cent of the country’s total cargo traffic