Jan 2020

ARTICLE
overall development of blue Economy.
The logistics cost in India is more than 14% of the GDP
and it is one of the highest in the world. The government
has set an objective to bring this down to less than
10%. With this in view, the inland waterways will be developed
across the country for the transportation and
20,000 KMs are likely to be developed and already few
National waterways were opened for transportation of
cargo. The focus of Inland waterways will be transport
of bulk items like Steel, Coal, cement, Iron ore, Agricultural
commodities.
The Sagarmala Programme covers investment of ₹8.5
trillion to set up new mega ports, modernizing India’s existing
ports, developing of 14 Coastal Economic Zones
“Prime Minister set a vision of achieving
$ 5 trillion GDP within a short period
of time. Blue Economy can contribute
to $ 1 trillion of GDP . We can have Blue
Economy Vision of $ 1 tillion.”
To increase the pace of growth through Blue Economy,
plans could be drawn up to create Ports with city and Industrial
development similar to Singapore and four ports
in India could be identified to replicate the model and
success of Singapore.
One of the challenges for achieving this growth will be
arranging finance for such large projects. The options for
raising the required financial resources could include,
lease of operating Port assets to generate revenue for
new projects, issue of Blue Bonds ( already issued by
Seychelles ), attracting FDI from leading players in Blue
Economy in the world, issuing special bonds focussed
on port based projects apart from the traditional sources
of funding.
Considering the new found thrust on this concept, we
will have opportunities arising in the developing the areas
of Automobiles, Engines, Inland water Transportation
Vessels, Renewable energy, Security, Infrastructure
Development , River based projects, Water based projects,
Lubricants and Marine oil, Banking and Financial
Services.
We should use the long coast line and rivers in India
to achieve the desired target of $ 1 trillion through and
the government initiatives in place will go a long way in
achieving the target and all the stake holders should be
geared to achieve this target. The government can create
a programme to propagate the vision of $ 1 trillion
to all the stake holders which will help to achieve the
target very fast.
(CEZs) and Coastal Employment Units, enhancing port
connectivity via road, rail, multi-modal logistics parks,
pipelines & waterways and promoting coastal community
development, with the aim of boosting merchandise
exports by US$110 billion and generating around
10,000,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Sagarmala aims to modernize India’s Ports so that portled
development can be augmented and coastlines can
be developed to contribute to India’s growth. It also
aims at “transforming the existing Ports into modern
world-class Ports and integrate the development of the
Ports, the Industrial clusters and hinterland and efficient
evacuation systems through road, rail, inland and coastal
waterways resulting in Ports becoming the drivers of
economic activity in coastal areas.
January January 2020 2020 | | Littoral Wind | | 28 3