Maritime Nation India 2016 deliberates on collaboration to rebuild India as a Maritime Nation
Sept 29, 2016: The maiden international conference and exhibition of the maritime industry, Maritime Nation India was held at CIDCO exhibition Centre, Navi Mumbai recently. The event was inaugurated by Deepak Shetty, Director General of Shipping & Secretary to the Govt. of India, Ministry of Shipping, Directorate General of India; Air Commodore Ranjan Mukherjee, Additional Director General Prasar Bharati and RK Jain from the Indian Merchants Chamber. The inauguration ceremony witnessed a huge gathering of professionals from the maritime and logistics ecosystem. The three-day event was attended by professionals from logistics and shipping industry, ports.
Maritime Nation India served as a platform for the business interactions amongst the foreign delegates, exhibitors, speakers and Indian maritime professionals giving them all a huge and common platform to exchange their views on all maritime areas.
On the first day the business session on ‘Collaborating to leverage India as a Maritime Nation – Trade Lanes and Shipping’ was moderated by Sailesh Bhatia, Managing Director, Bhatia Shipping and among the panelist were Deepak Shetty, Niraj Ambani, president – group logistics, Reliance Industries; Pramod Sant, vice president - head of import and export, export control & custom, Siemen; Anil Devli, CEO, Indian National Shipowners’ Association and Capt B Chakraborty, Managing Director, “K” Line (India). The panel discussed on the role of free trade agreement and trade lanes to boost the business.
Among the panelist for the second session ‘Collaborate to lift Indian maritime infrastructure in India and Abroad-Ports, CFS/ICD, SEZ & Logistics Park’ included Atul Kulkarni, advisor (International Projects), Indian Ports Association; Arun Kumar Gupta, Managing Director, India Ports Global; Sumesh Padmanabhan, CEO, DP World Mundra and Vineet Malhotra, Director, Kale Logistics. The panel agreed that technology plans an important role at ports and adequate infrastructure is crucial for smooth functioning of port operations.
Neeraj Bansal, deputy chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) elaborated on the challenges and opportunities of JNPT. He said that port modernisation plays a crucial role in pushing the economics. Currently, JNPT has 4.5 million TEUs capacity and aims to increase to 10 million TEUs by 2022. JNPT will have a fourth terminal, the first phase with the capacity of 2.4 million TEUs will be operational by December 2017 and second phase with the capacity of 2.4 million TEUs will be operational by 2022.
Rajendra Meena, Joint Commissioner, Single Window Project, Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC), Ministry of Finance highlighted the importance and implications of single window system implementation by CBEC in the shipping and logistics sector.
The second day commenced with a power session on ship building and ship repair, where the Flag Officer Commanding Maharashtra Naval Area, Rear Admiral Ghormade, along with other panelists interacted with the audience and shared his views on the topic. The International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) conference was also held in the presence of international delegates, officers and professionals from the maritime industry. The consul General of Iran, govt. and business representatives from Russia, Uzbekistan participated in the conference. Sessions on GST implementation on hipping and Logistics sector and single window by central board of excise and customs were also held in the presence of maritime professionals, industry experts and delegates.
The third day ended with an interesting session on cruise and lighthouse tourism while the panelists and delegates had insightful discussions on the business opportunities and a much wider spectrum of cruise industry.
