Shipping

Indian vessels carried 33.6% of the total sea-borne cargo during 1993-94. The fleet strength at the end of November 1995 was 471 vessels of 7 million Gross registered Tonnage (GRT). Overseas trade during 1193-94 was 137 million tons.

There are 2 major public sector ship building yards - Hindustan Shipyards Limited and Cochin Shipyards Limited. Due to various reasons like high construction costs, heavy interest burden on debt, low order book position, excessive manpower etc., these yards were incurring losses. However, as a result of the revival measures initiated by the government in September 1993, they have now turned around.

Reforms

In order to promote the development of Indian shipping, a new shipping policy was initiated in 1990-91 whose policy measures are summarized below :

• Automatic approval now given for acquisition of

(a) all categories of ships except Crude tankers and Off-shore Supply Vessels and

(b) replacement tonnage.

• No approval required for sale of ships and acquisition of ships from an Indian company.
• Shipping companies allowed to retain sale proceeds of their ships abroad and utilize them for fresh acquisition.
• Shipping companies permitted to get their ships repaired in any shipyard without seeking prior approval from the government.
• Shipping companies allowed to acquire vessels through bare-boat charter--demise method.
• No prior permission required from Directorate General of Shipping for sale of vessels for trading or scrapping, by Indian shipping companies.
• RBI now releases foreign exchange for ship repairing/dry docking and spares for imported capital goods, without any value limit.