SHORT COMMUNICATION

Future Technological Challenges Facingthe Indian Maritime Sector

M. K. Banger

Received: 27 August 2011 / Accepted: 15 October 2011 / Published online: 4 February 2012

� The Institution of Engineers (India) 2012

India’s economic boom and strategically geographical

location have offered good potential for growth of the

maritime industry which unfortunately has not been

effectively utilized in the larger interest of the Nation. The

Indian Maritime Sector is yet to overcome many challenges

imposed by convention 0073 passed by IMO. These chal-

lenges have arisen due to various conventions passed by

the IMO, and UNO Body for implementation by specified

time limit by the member states. Since, India is a signatory

to the various instruments of the convention, it becomes

essential for us to identify what these challenges are and

whether we have taken adequate steps to meet these chal-

lenges. Some of the challenges in the Port and Shipping

Sector can be identified as below:

Replacement of Single Hull Tankers by Double Hull

Tankers

Phasing out of single hull tankers by 2015 and the corre-

sponding induction of double hull tankers have posed a

great global challenges in the formulation of hull design

and acceptance by member states. This has caused con-

siderable turmoil in the ship building sector due to the

resulting escalation in the price of such vessels.

Change Over to Non-TBT Antifouling Paints

by End 2008

The TBT antifouling paints, once the wonder find of the

1960s have been identified as the main culprit in destroying

aquatic life as a result of which the paint are to be replaced by

the non-TBT antifouling paints. This implies that all vessels

above 300 GRT need to change over to this new paint by end

2008. Though foreign companies such as [otun, Intersleek

and Hempel had commenced their search for the new paint

formulation way back in early 1990s, our Indian paint

manufacturers chose to shy away and continue to focus on

‘Decorative’ paints. What a big loss for the Indian paint

manufacturing industry—as well as a national loss. Could

not the government have assigned this task as a project to our

National Chemical Laboratory? Do we need to be fleeced

by foreign pain manufacturing companies? Someone in the

government needs to be accountable for this great loss.

Further, we do not have adequate number of dry docks

to cater for this paint change over which is another big

constraint.

Change Over to Environmentally Friendly Gases

For replacement of existent refrigerant and air conditioning

halogen gases by environmentally friendly gases, the cutoff

date has been extended from 2012 to 2020. The search is on.

Water Ballast Management

A number of alternative methods have been tried out in the

recent past but none seem to have passed the acid test by

way of acceptance by the member states. As a result, the

M. K. Banger—deceased.

M. K. Banger (&), Commodore, VSM (Retd.)MMRDA, Mumbai, Maharashtra

e-mail: surojit.iei@gmail.com

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Journal of The Institution of Engineers (India): Series C (January–March 2012) 93(1):111–113

DOI 10.1007/s40032-011-0004-y

existing practice of adopting the method of water exchange

continues.

Lack of Numerical Strength of Mercantile Fleet

The present strength of the Indian fleet is understood to be

about 812 with gross tonnage of about 9.5 million. This

figure has remained almost stagnant over the past 18 years

thereby resulting in its inability to match up with EXIM

trade—cargo traffic standing at 543 MT. Only 9.5% of

this cargo has been carried by Indian Flag Vessels, the

remaining 90.50% by foreign flag vessels resulting in

major drain of foreign exchange. There is an urgent need to

increase the Indian fleet tonnage by second hand acquisi-

tions. Coupled with this, the ship building orders placed on

foreign yards need to be followed through expeditiously.

Consideration needs to be given to provide a ship owner

with incentives and subsidy for acquiring ships from

abroad. This is the need of the minutes if not of the hour as

the carriage of cargo by Indian vessels has fallen from 30%

in 2002 to 9.5% in 2009. The answer lies in encouraging to

set up a number of shipbuilding yards both on the West and

East coasts through PPP model.

Lack of Depth Along Coastline

A major constraint has been the utter lack of depth along

the 7,416 km. coastline of India, thereby compelling to

incur expenditure on capital dredging. The depth at

potential Greenfield sites for port development has been

around 2.5–3.0 m. The capital dredging cost found to be

about 25–30% of the project cost should be rightly borne

by the government for allowing the silt (cholesterol) level

to rise to such alarming heights over the years for no fault

of the developer. The maintenance dredging cost however,

shall be the responsibility of the developer. The National

Maritime Development Progress (formerly called SAG-

ARMALA) should make a budgetary provision for capital

dredging for various Greenfield ports developed by the

maritime States. The above coupled with existing lack of a

national dredging fleet has further added to the woes of the

maritime Sector.

Lack of Deep-Water Berths

The quantum jump made in ship building technology i.e.

ultra large crude carriers has created a major mismatch

between ship building technology and port technology.

This has resulted in many ports of the world not in a

position to receive such deep draught vessels.

Lacking of Dredging Fleet

The national dredging fleet i.e. the Dredging Corporation

of India as a fleet strength of 12 dredgers. The capital

dredging requirement is about 185 million cubic meters

and the maintenance dredging is about 60 million cubic

meters that is beyond the indigenous capacity. This situa-

tion has made it easy for the foreign dredging companies

to exploit the dredging business over the last 20 years. It is

considered essential that the Govt. of India accord serious

consideration for setting up a school for training personnel

required for the dredging sector. Also, necessary support by

way of subsidy and soft loan to be given to Indian ship

building yards for building dredgers.

Lacking of Dry Docks

The extreme shortage of dry dock has been bane of India

shop owners for quite sometime. This has resulted in many

of our Indian ships going abroad (mostly to Dubai) for dry

docking thereby draining a considerable amount foreign

exchange.

Development of Inland Waterways

India is extremely fortune to have its land mass traversed

by so many rivers like no other country in the world. We

have 25,000 km of potential navigable length of rivers of

which 14,000 has been made navigable. Out of this, only

2,716 km has been presently commercially exploited. The

total cargo handled by inland waterways has been 60 MT

so far.

The Inland Vessel Act, 1917 has been suitably amended

recently and another amendment to further increase the

limit of I.V. operation from its present status is on the

anvil. The responsibility of implementing this Inland

Vessel Act will be entirely left to the respective maritime

states superseding any notification on Inland Vessel issued

in the recent past by other governing body. The maritime

states need to plan and cater themselves adequately to take

on the responsibility of registration, certification, survey,

manning, examination and training of IV. Personnel that

shall call for urgent recruitment of additional staff.

Conclusion

With the deep global recession set in, coupled with the

utter lack of foreign direct investment in the maritime

sector, it is strongly recommended that the government

should review the strategy and policy governing the

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various facets of the maritime sector such as port devel-

opment, ship building, dredging, inland waterways, cruise

tourism and coastal erosion. It is understood that the

Ministry of Shipping is going to undertake a review of the

National Maritime Development Plan as only 50 out of a

total 275 projects had been completed so far and further

only 75 nos. projects are in progress. A white paper on the

‘‘Way Ahead’’ for the Indian Maritime Sector need to be

drawn up and promulgated.

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