New Delhi: The Indian government is working on new legislation to replace outdated laws relating to ports, as part of efforts to ensure that regulations keep pace with time.
“The existing laws that pertain to definition of major and minor ports were made long ago, and need to be amended with a modern outlook,” said Shipping and Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari. “New laws would help ports improve their efficiency and adopt new technologies.”
Gadkari said that, in addition, rules needed to be amended to allow modernisation of ports, including through utilisation of dollar loans. The existing laws did not permit ports to take dollar loans for their development. He promised to bring in fresh legislation within three months.
The minister said that, if the respective state governments were unable to give the cost of land acquired, he would take a contribution of INR250-300m ($4-4.8m) from every port.
“We will treat this money as equity of other ports in this project,” he said. “We will give that money for land acquisition. Even after bearing such huge costs, we would be ready with an open mind to construct such a port.”
