Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy informed that the state would be willing to make further changes to make the financial incentive scheme more useful for the players in the coastal shipping sector.
It may be noted that the state government is the first to introduce financial incentives for water transport, by giving a subsidy of Rs 1 per tonne for cargo movement through coastal shipping. He said this during the Coastal Shipping and IWT Summit held in the state recently.
By 2015, the state government plans to divert at least 20 per cent of the cargo through coastal shipping and 40 per cent by 2020.
Further, Chandy said the state government was willing to hold discussions with other state governments to work out an appropriate level of taxation to promote coastal shipping.
Chandy also called for concerted efforts at the national and State level for shifting focus to coastal shipping from road and rail. He said highways are grossly inadequate to contain the increasing number of vehicles, while the rail network is unable to cope with demand.
By focussing on coastal and inland waters for exports and domestic movement, logistics cost could be reduced immensely, Chandy feels.
The coastal traffic potential through the non-major ports in Kerala is estimated to be 4.64 million tonne during 2012-14 and 7 million tonne by 2019-2020. This target is proposed to be achieved by a three-pronged strategy — modern infrastructure, incentives and institution building, State Port Minister K Babu said.
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