Bharat Pravah-India along its Shores | 19 Jan 2023
Why in News?
Recently, the Ministry of Shipping, Waterways, and Ports has launched ‘Bharat Pravah-India along its Shores’, an initiative to highlight the significance and imagery of rivers, ports, and shipping in everyday life through a series of nationwide events.
- Kochi, Vizhinjam in Kerala and Galathea Bay ports in Andaman Nicobar Islands have made some headway in the direction of becoming full-fledged transhipment hubs.
What is Bharat Pravah?
- About:
- Bharat Pravah will serve as a common platform to bring together stakeholders from different walks for the purpose of creating a larger vision of shipping, rivers, seas & people.
- It will highlight the challenges, policy issues and future goals relating to the maritime sector.
- Themes:
- Rivers and Sea-Centric Development in India- the Historical lens.
- Sea, River, Ports and Ship in Folk Culture and Literature.
- Representation of Ports and Shipping in Popular Culture.
- Role of Shipping and Ports in India’s Development in the last 30 years.
- The Politics and Economy of Privatisation of Ports.
- Inland Waterways – Arteries of Growth, their Role and Significance.
- Greening Ports and Shipping Industry.
- Future of Ports and Shipping Industry- Management, Challenges and Policies.
What are the Important Points related to Ports in India?
- Government is seeking that all ports to prepare a master plan to become mega ports by 2047.
- Currently, nearly 75% of India’s transshipment cargo is handled at ports outside India. The ports of Colombo, Singapore, and Klang handle more than 85% of this cargo, according to Ministry data.
- Transshipment hubs are ports that have connections to originating and destination ports.
- While India was looking to build mega ports which will be digitised and more environment-friendly, there are challenges along the way.
- India does roughly 35% of containerization, while other developing countries do 62% to 65% containerization.
- Currently India does more break bulk shipping rather than using containers, however, we are making rapid progress towards containerization.
- India’s share in world trade is a meagre 2%. Balance of trade is towards import. India stands at 44 on the logistics performance index.
- The reason for low ranking is the absence of appropriate infrastructure and procedural reforms.