The National Shipping Board (NSB) has proposed a five-point roadmap to add 100 vessels to India’s merchant fleet over the next five years, with the move aimed at reducing the country’s dependence on foreign shipping lines for transporting critical cargo.
The NSB said India currently pays close to $75 billion annually, in freight charges to foreign shipping lines for transporting commodities including crude oil, gas, coal, and urea.
Union Minister for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal, who chaired the event, welcomed the roadmap and said the measures would help Indian shipowners participate in the country’s expanding maritime economy. “Taken together, these are not five separate asks; they are the architecture of a nation choosing, at last, to own its own trade,” Mr. Sonowal said. Union Minister of State for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways Shantanu Thakur said India could not depend on foreign shipping lines to secure its trade routes and stressed the need to strengthen domestic tonnage.
The five-point roadmap is aimed at supporting the government’s ambition of making India one of the world’s top five ship-owning nations by 2047 under the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision.
