The Government of India has taken many steps for optimum utilization of waterways. There are no restrictions on utilisation of sea route for transportation in Indian territorial waters. Besides, in order to facilitate coastal trade, the inland vessel limit is taken as the water inwards baseline to further facilitate the seamless movement of maritime/merchant shipping traffic in the Indian coastal waters, five nautical miles from the baseline has been declared as in-shore maritime traffic corridor/zone, during fair weather period, for vessels registered under the Inland Vessels Act, 1917.
The following steps have also been taken to make optimum utilization of sea waterways:
i) A River-Sea Vessels (RSV) Notification for moderating the technical and manning requirements for vessels operating within the Indian territorial waters was issued by the Directorate General of Shipping on 31/7/2013.
ii) The Directorate General of Shipping has issued an order declaring the Inland Vessel (IV) limits for facilitating coastal trade operations.
iii) Coastal Shipping Rules for coastal vessels operating within 20 miles off the coast have been issued by the Directorate General of Shipping on 04/03/2014.
iv) All major ports have been advised to introduce Green Channel for coastal cargo, priority berthing for coastal vessels and construction of exclusive coastal berths.
v) Government has exempted customs and Central Excise duty on bunker fuels (IFO 180 and IFO 380 CST) for use by coastal vessels carrying EXIM cargo or empty containers or domestic cargo between two ports in India.
vi) The abatement of service tax has been brought at 70% for coastal shipping at par with road and rail.
This information was given by Minister of State for Shipping, Shri Pon. Radhakrishnan in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.
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(Release ID :144903)