From being 22nd in the world right now, India will endeavour to be among
the top 10 shipbuilding nations by 2030 and top five by 2047, with a new
shipbuilding policy that will be unveiled soon, Sonowal said in a post-budget
interaction. The ministry has been
working on a shipbuilding policy, for which it had sought stakeholder comments
on broad-based policy directives in the first week of July. In a
presentation prepared by KPMG for the ministry, it suggested a host of measures
to boost indigenous shipbuilding.
Reported earlier this month that the ministry has proposed to put a
mandatory Make In India clause for manufacturing of coastal vessels starting
2030.
“We had been requesting GST and custom duty changes which will help the
industry and bring export competitiveness and cost reduction. There have also
been custom duty relaxations for components and consumables for manufacturing
of vessels,” said Shipping Secretary T.K. Ramachandran, who was present with
the minister with other senior officials from the ministry.
“Earlier, we had a short
timeframe in which to complete ship repairs, which has now been extended to one
year. Similarly, warranty being extended from three to five
years and time limit for import of replacements in ship repair has been
liberalised,” he added.
The industry had shown several concerns about the policy, which are now
being deliberated on by the ministry before it unveils the final policy. Under the shipbuilding policy
deliberations, the ministry had proposed a shipbreaking credit note scheme,
under which issue of credit note amounting to 40 per cent of the scrap value of
ship undergoing breakage at Indian shipbreaking shipyard would be issued, with
the credit note being reimbursable for construction of a new commercial ship.
It had also proposed single
window operations for the setting up of new shipyards, setting up of Common Facility Centres through public private
partnership, establishment of common maritime assets that facilitate modular
multi-location construction of pre outfitted hull blocks of ships, and an
empowered committee to oversee shipbuilding reforms.