Maritime India Vision, 2030 has set a target to elevate India’s global ranking in shipbuilding in top 10 and the vision as per the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision, 2047 is to reach within top 5 positions.  The steps taken by the Ministry for developing/enhancement of shipbuilding infrastructure and creating all allied facilities in the country are as under:

(i) Ministry has amended the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Policy (SBFAP) guidelines on 29.01.2025 to encourage more participation in the shipbuilding activities.

(ii) The Government, in November, 2021, has released Standard Tug Designs of five variants for use by Major Ports for procurement of tugs to be built in Indian Shipyards.

(iii) To promote indigenous shipbuilding, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways on 20.09.2023 has revised the hierarchy of Right of First Refusal (RoFR) to be followed in any kind of charter of a vessel which is undertaken through a tender process.

The revised hierarchy of RoFR is:

(1) Indian built, Indian flagged and Indian owned

(2) Indian built, Indian flagged and Indian IFSCA owned

(3) Foreign built, Indian flagged and Indian owned

(4) Foreign built, Indian flagged and Indian IFSCA owned

(5) Indian built, foreign flagged and foreign owned

(iv) Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has launched the Green Tug Transition Programme (GTTP) which aims to reduce carbon emissions and minimize environmental impact by encouraging adoption of environmentally sustainable tugboat operations.

(v) Government has launched the Harit Nauka guidelines for inland vessels which aim to promote the adoption of greener technologies in inland waterway vessels.

(vi) Government of India vide Gazette Notification No. 112 dated April 13, 2016 has included ‘Shipyards’ in the updated Harmonized Master List of Infrastructure Sub-sectors.

(vii) In order to promote indigenous shipbuilding, Government has issued guidelines on 19.05.2016 for evaluating and awarding tenders for new shipbuilding orders floated by government departments or agencies including public sector undertakings for acquisition of any type of vessel(s) used by them for Governmental purposes or for their own use. Whenever acquisition of a vessel(s) is undertaken through tendering route, the qualified Indian Shipyards will have a “Right of First Refusal” to enable them to match the evaluated lowest price offered by the foreign shipyard which is aimed at increasing shipbuilding activities in Indian shipyards.

Further, the Government entities dealing with shipbuilding and ship-owning are advised to ensure local content as per the Government of India Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017. As per this Order, procurement of ships of less than ₹200 crores is required to be from Indian shipyards.

This information was given by the Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Shri Sarbananda Sonowal in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

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GDH/HR/SJ

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