India's Coastal Shipping: (6)
Indian Shipping Policy is like a garrulous old hag's valiant misadventures with a translucent skimpy swimwear, in the comical miming of youthful exhibitionism, with a vain struggle to masquerade the colony of flabby cellulites. Derisions apart, Cabotage had a profound effect in keeping our Coastal Shipping – a famished, wasted, & stunted bedlam in comparison to the powerful national shipping of US or China. US could and still can afford the Jones Act of 1920. Going by their experience of the two world wars and many other wars fought far away from their home soil, their military-expediency to hold on to this Protectionist Act far out-weighs their commercial interests. Independent India fought all its wars on its shores and borders. I do not foresee a future where India shall have the same world-domineering mind-set, ambition or need like the US to fight away from home soil. Our hands are already too full anyway to contemplate otherwise. China has significantly modified its Cabotage Law in 2003 to allow transhipment of containers by foreign vessels. Indonesia, Malaysia, & Brazil have had similar dilutions. Our shipping policy is not only rigid, inconsistent, impractical, & patchy but also highly detrimental to our national shipping and blatantly anti-people. You would notice blind arrogance in its laid out objectives. The number of times the word 'control' is used in the document – as if a dirty leaf out of Stalin's manifesto - would make people like you or I regurgitate in disgust. It is a cruel policy of a megalomaniac bureaucratic power robbing the nation & its people of their means to conduct business freely with dignity. How can such controls protect a famished & dying Indian shipping anyway? In fact, it has smothered and stunted it beyond salvage. How can we just ape Jones Act with complete disregard to our national interest? A rich US can afford this Act, but not a poor India – impoverished under the Socialistic scalpels of anti-market & anti-people ideologies for more than half a century. Our priorities are different. Our topography is different. And so are our demography, culture & philosophies. We need a strong defence not offensive military outlook. We cannot bleed our poor in the name of Cabotage & import substitution.
Allowing foreign flags to participate in coastal shipping shall cut costs of both coastal & exim cargo. The combination of the volumes of domestic & exim cargo shall give that extra edge of economy of scale. The scale is desperately needed, when you see one-way domestic volumes from north to south on the west coast & the elusive volumes on the east coast. Foreign flags are no threat to Indian shipping today because Indian shipping has survived as a sick child, the deathblows of Nehruvian policies far worse than what international competition could auger. I can safely affirm that by dilution of the Cabotage, we shall benefit on costs to the nation and the coastal shipping. This shall have no damaging effect on our national tonnage. In fact, this might give a small push to Indian ship owning – indirect or direct. Therefore, I have strongly proscribed the notion of a 'Smart Flag' concept that would transform Indian shipping into a vibrant & powerful one in a matter of months. For more on this you can visit www.maxiconline.com under the link of articles.
Example: A foreign or smart-flagged vessel calls Nhava Sheva from China with full load. On the return leg, it is practically empty all the way until China. If Cabotage is diluted, she can carry transhipment & domestic boxes from Nhava Sheva to Tuticorin, Cochin & even Chennai or Vizag at an amazing price, while rationalizing the freight levels from China. Imports from direct calls from Europe, US, Africa, & Middle East to these ports shall be transhipped in Nhava Sheva or Mundra. Along with this exim lot, the domestic cargo will flow with a fraction of its current cost. Similar activities will spring up in Chennai or Vizag too. There would blossom commercially sagacity in having dedicated feeders from Chennai/Vizag to Nhava Sheva/Mundra with both legs having ample cargo. Once fully implemented, Colombo, Salalah, Singapore, Portklang, or Tanjung Pelapas shall have a run for their money & billions of much needed precious dollars could be saved from utterly wasteful projects on Vizhinjam or Vallarpadam or Colachel and focused on more constructive projects like the Sethusamudram or expansions in Nhava Sheva or Ennore.
psrath@gmail.com
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