Chennai:
The central government and the states should discuss
and work together to develop Indias port sector
in a holistic manner, recommends a Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) and Ferguson study. The present practice
of the centre taking care of the major ports and the states
looking after the minor ports will not give the required
results.
The
study, to be released at the two-day summit on Infrastructure
Development held by CII (southern region) in Chennai on
19-20 March 2003, looks at the southern port sector
both major and minor ports and suggests way and
means to improve ports profitability and efficiency.
Addressing
the media B Sridhar, chairman, working group on ports,
CII (SR), and director Bengal Tiger Line (India), said:
The key issue is to see that all the ports, particularly
the minor ports, get sufficient traffic.
Traditionally
minor ports were established as a captive facility for
a major industrial project. However, this changed with
the minor ports competing with major ports for traffic
and vice versa.
According
to Sridhar, the country should also look at coastal shipping
in a serious way as it is very cost-effective and will
also decongest the roads.
It
should be noted that traffic for minor ports and coastal
shipping would increase only if industries are located
in away from the state capitals. And if that has to happen,
other infrastructure road, communication network
should be there. Sadly nobody seems to address
this issue. Even this CII seminar is more slanted towards
major ports.
Speaking
about the lenders perspective A Balasubramanian,
member, working group on ports, CII (SR), and assistant
vice president (operations), Infrastructure Development
Finance Company (IDFC), said: There is a paradigm
shift in lenders perspective. While world-class
service quality is taken for granted we see whether the
users are willing to pay the price proposed for such services.
In
China, the government acts like a venture capitalist.
It restricts itself to the development of infrastructure
while attracting the traffic for the ports and terminals,
which are left for private players.
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