In its aspiration to become one of the top five shipbuilding nations in the world, the Centre is giving a huge impetus towards shipbuilding and repair in India.
A key ingredient fuelling the development of any industry is money. Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, feels a need to create a financial institution that can support the growth of India's maritime industry, akin to the power sector.
"The most important challenge for the sector is to create finance. Today we need to create a special arrangement about supporting them to create a financial institution, which can support them. We have got the Power Finance Corporation that is very useful for power generation companies," Gadkari pointed out.
He also noted that while the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) didn't have any finance corporation, there were no resource-related issues, as the economic viability was good.
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NHAI is targeting Rs 1.30 lakh crore per year of income from the monetisation of road assets, as compared to the current figure of Rs 54,000 crore, which would eliminate funding-related issues, informed Gadkari.
"In the maritime sector also, we need to think on the line of how we are going to make capital available," he added.
Giving an example of the Sagarmala Project, he pointed out how the balance sheet strength of 12 major projects helped.
"The cost of the project was Rs 16 lakh crore and the budget from the Ministry was only Rs 900 crore. We used the ports' strength and today, I am happy more than Rs 7-8 lakh crore projects we have already completed. So, we need to understand how we can create finance," said Gadkari.
He said there was a need to have a simplified economic mechanism by which funds could be raised.
Gadkari also stressed credibility and economic viability, without which there wouldn't be any funding support for projects.
There is also a need for transparency, a time-bound decision-making process, a corruption-free system, and a fast-track decision-making process, he added.
