Seven projects worth more than Rs 2,000 crore will be offered by the major ports on Public private partnership mode in FY21-22. This was stated by the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting Union Budget 2021-22 in Parliament today. Major ports will be moving from managing their operational services on their own to a model where a private partner will manage it for them, she said.

To promote flagging of merchant ships in India, in her budget speech, Smt. Sitharaman also proposed to launch a subsidy support scheme of Rs 1624 crore in global tenders floated by Ministries and CPSEs over 5 years to Indian shipping companies. She emphasised, that this initiative would enable greater training and employment opportunities for Indian seafarers besides enhancing Indian companies share in global shipping.

Smt. Sitharaman also proposed to double the ship recycling capacity of around 4.5 Million Light Displacement Tonne (LDT) by 2024. She said that efforts will be made to bring more ships to India from Europe and Japan, as around 90 ship recycling yards at Alang in Gujarat have already achieved HKC (Hong Kong International convention) compliant certificates. This is expected to generate additional 1.5 lakh jobs for the youth of the country.

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