New Delhi: The economic potential of India’s maritime domain is enormous. All that is required is a focused plan to capture this potential in a time-bound manner, said Vice Admiral (Retd) Anup Singh, while delivering a talk on ‘India's Maritime Domain: Untapped Opportunities’ at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) on October 25, 2013.
Stressing on the need to assess the potential of India’s maritime environment, he said that one needs to imbibe the correct geo-strategic perspective that India presents to the world by looking at the Indian peninsular configuration, the way it dominates the Indian Ocean and the way it acts as a focal point of trade routes.
Speaking about the coastal composition of the country, Vice Admiral Singh said that the Maritime nations crave for deep waters as they offer abundant benefits in terms deep water ports, transhipment hubs, oil and gas nodes offshore, and to establish shipbuilding industry along deep water shores. India’s East coast is ripe territory for all these activities with untold potential for economic activity. The West Coast of India, on the other hand, has an expanse that remains shallow for miles beyond the shore, but is not assumed as a disadvantage by anyone except port authorities and the shipping industry.
While emphasising upon the importance of ports for any offshore activity – particularly trade, he said that India has an inventory of 13 major and nearly 200 intermediate and minor ports. However, the largest of these by real estate measure – major ports – are still set in the mould of archaic procedures. This results in a serious lag between capacity and throughput, leading to loss of revenue and diversion of trade to more attractive transhipment hubs in our neighbourhood, he said, while asserting that If India is to move on a North-bound graph of economic growth, the first requirement is to set its infrastructure in order. This can happen through modernisation and true liberalisation.
Further, speaking on Indian owned shipping fleet as another asset to focus upon, he stated that at under 9 Million Gross tons, with a fleet of just 700 vessels, India has barely 200 foreign going ships available under the Indian flag. Terming it as an unhealthy sign, he insisted that India needs to encourage the private sector in establishing shipbuilding yards with the aim of not only building a ‘home’ fleet, but also competing with the newly emerging giants in the East.
Vice Admiral Singh further highlighted the minimal use of the natural network of inland waters. Despite having established the Inland Waterways Authority of India in 1986, the country still transports an insignificant proportion of the total inland cargo, by water, he said, pointing out the immense benefit that can accrue from using this medium where cost of transportation is a fraction of the expenditure incurred by road. With nine coastal states and five coastal Union Territories – most of them industrially developed – there is no reason why coastal shipping should not be the preferred mode of bulk transportation, he stated.
Vice Admiral (Retd) Anup Singh also commented on the potential of tapping energy from solar to wind to hydrological energy along the coasts to cater to India’s domestic needs.
Potential of India’s Maritime Environment Immense: Vice Admiral (Retd) Anup Singh