Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has said that true value of “Blue Economy” is unlocked only when all the allied sectors, which are directly and indirectly dependent on the ocean such as aquaculture, maritime & coastal tourism, chemical & bio-technological exploration, ship building and other port led industries provide sustainable employment and growth opportunities.
Mr. Jagan was speaking at the “Maritime India Summit 2021”, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually, from his camp office here, on Tuesday.
“The draft of the first-ever National Fishing Policy released by Government of India in September 2020 is an example of the steps taken in that direction. Now, 95% of India’s trading by volume and 70% by value is through maritime transport. Indian ports handled approximately 1.2 billion metric tonnes of cargo traffic in the year 2019-20 and much required policy reforms like 100% FDI, Make-in-India, Sagar Mala and Bharat Mala have been introduced to ensure exponential growth in this sector,” Mr. Jagan said.
Stating that the importance of Blue Economy in a nation’s growth story extended much beyond the maritime trade and the export- import statistics, Mr. Jagan said Andhra Pradesh was ranked No.1 in the country in Ease of Doing Business rankings 2020, and one of the factors that contributed to this achievement was the State government’s efforts in developing port infrastructure, support ecosystem and encouraging port-led industrialisation.
“We are drawing inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his focussed agenda to take India’s maritime economy to the next level, Andhra Pradesh has taken up a lot of transformative steps to leverage its coastal line of 974 km, which is the second longest in India and the longest on the eastern coast of the country,” he said.
Andhra Pradesh has one major port in Visakhapatnam, five functional State ports and 10 other notified State ports with world class facilities that handle more than 170 million tonnes of cargo per annum, second only to Gujarat. The State shared 4% of total Indian exports and aimed at reaching 10% share by 2030, said Mr. Jagan.
To further unlock this potential offered by the long coastline, the State government had undertaken development of three greenfield ports at Ramayapatnam, Machilipatnam and Bhavanapadu on an innovative model that mitigated all risks associated with greenfield port development, thereby making the port operation a risk-free proposition for the private sector.
After the development of the port by the government, the operator of the port would be selected on competitive bidding basis ensuring maximum revenue realisation for the government. These all-weather, deep-drafted ports were all set to be operational by 2023, creating an additional capacity of at least 100 million tonnes of cargo per annum in the short term, with a potential to grow leaps and bounds in the long term, Mr. Jagan added.
