India may be reckoned as a globally reputed maritime trade nation, considering its ancient and golden past in maritime trade relations with foreign nations. However, when the question of how improved its port infrastructure facility is to match the growing demands due to rise in export import activities, India seems to be a laggard.

Industry leaders from the shipping sector rues that the Indian maritime sector has tremendous potential to generate huge amount of revenue for the Indian government, provided the country’s major ports are developed to match the growing expectations. But, considering the current infrastructure condition in the country’s 12 major ports, industry players believe that at present the Indian port sector is in a dire need of substantial foreign investments to make a turnaround.

Vote in favour of foreign investment

According to a recent survey conducted by Shippingbiz 360, 90% of the respondents said that foreign fund is required to revamp the port sector in order to facilitate export import business in the country. In the poll, only 10% of the respondents were unsure about the same.

Recently, while discussing various issues pertaining to ports in the country, APVN Sarma, the Shipping Secretary, has said that the Indian Shipping Ministry has plans to develop 50 new ports over a period of 5 years. He admitted that the current infrastructure condition in the 12 major ports is not matching the global standards.

“It is unfortunate that India, which had a glorious history in ocean trade, trails far behind other Asian counterparts such as Japan, China and Singapore in terms of modern port facilities,” comments, Vikash Gupta, MD of Falcon Freightlink Private Limited (Import Consultant), a mid-sized shipping and forwarding company in New Delhi.

Perennial flow of foreign fund

According to Ashok Poojary, Director of Mars Shipping Agency, a mid-sized shipping firm in Mumbai, “Foreign investment can change the current decrepit state of the Indian ports. Moreover, shipping and export import companies lose a huge amount of money due to congestion at ports. All these issues can be addressed if there is a perennial flow of foreign fund for the development of major ports in the country.”

While emphasising on the positive side of foreign investments in ports, industry analysts are of the opinion that globally reputed port management companies will also show their interest in the Indian port development projects once the investment becomes steady.

Anirban Guha