vinit goenka

12 major ports in India increase their combined capacity by 71 million tonnes.

Since taking up the ministerial role in Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways and Inland Waterways, Shri Nitin Gadkari Ji has been very active in strengthening the backbone of India’s economy by improving the efficiency of these sectors. His major strategic initiatives like signing a MoU with Iran on Chabaar Port construction, regulating e-rickshaws, ethanol bus services on alternate fuels, signing the Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala bus corridor with Bangladesh government clearly shows his vision to provide last mile connectivity as well as connecting international borders with India’s transport infrastructure.

A slew of steps are on to develop not only all 12 major ports but also the minor ports that come under the control of state governments to ensure that ports, along with surface transport and highways contribute at least 2 per cent to the GDP by 2020.

Under the able leadership of  our PM Hon. Shri Narendra Modi since 2014 , Hon. Shri Gadkari’s relentless efforts have now started bearing fruits.

The 12 major ports have been able to increase their combined capacity to 871 million tonnes as of March 2015, up by 71 million tonnes. This is the highest recorded increase over the past decade.

Modi government had envisioned a port-led development strategy, where dollar denominated income is been utilised to raise funds for last mile connectivity projects, along with the Sagarmala project been finalised by end of 2015 for implementation.

Another commendable development strategy of the Modi government for the above sectors has been to appoint a task force, which has a focused mandate to facilitate simplification of procedures by leveraging the use of Information Technology (IT) in the Ministries of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways.

This taskforce has been working very hard to come out with out-of-the-box IT solutions and methods to improve the efficiency of these sectors. They have been frequently visiting major project implementation units of NHAI and major ports areas to assess the current situation and what more can be done to strengthen the system and processes, by implementing different and viable IT solutions.

With Hon. Shri Modi  at the top and Hon. Shri Gadkari  incharge, the taskforce is surely to bring in necessary changes and make an impactful difference in the coming days.