INTERLINK INDIAN PORTS FOR PASSEMGER TRAFFIC

SAGARMALA : INTERLINK INDIAN PORTS FOR PASSENGER TRAFFIC

N.Nandhivarman

In Chennai Marina Beach just like buses start from Anna Terminal, a ship waits for passengers. People drive their cars and motorbikes near the ship, which has an open entrance. Passengers drive their cars and bikes inside the lower berth of the ship. Then they climb to the top berth where their seats are facing seas giving glimpses of the skies and sun. They have booked tickets to Mahabalipuram, Pondicherry, Karaikal, Nagapattinam, Tutucurin and Kanyakumari. Many minor ports are in between where infrastructure exists but not in operation. Hovercrafts can travel in road and seas, it can reach beach sands where there is no port for downloading passengers and cargo.

India has long coastline of 7517 kilometres with 12 major ports and 187 minor and intermediary ports. We are fully exploiting our 12 major Ports like Visakapattinam, Chennai, Tutucurin, Cochin, Mangalore and Mumbai. But when it comes to minor and intermediary ports they are used only as fishing harbours. While roads face traffic congestions and ever increasing accidents , because minor and intermediary ports are under the control of various state governments, no national policy emerged and these ports remained assets without generating revenues to states.

A suggestion to create National Seaways on the lines of National Highways was mooted by the author, when he was Trustee of Tutucurin Port Trust in between 1999-2001. Planning Commission Member Dr.S.B.Gupta evinced interest in this project, and then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee finally spelt out the thinking of the NDA Government at Kanyakumari and Nagerkoil during his visit to Tamilnadu . He renamed National Seaways as Sagarmala , garland of seas to interlink 187 minor and intermediary ports.

This policy announcement of Vajpayee still remains a dream in papers.

We have a coast extending from Gujarat in Arabian Sea to West Bengal in Bay of Bengal. Easy connectivity without hugh investment in infrastructure like road and bridges construction is not required. Already minor ports and intermediary ports exist without any use. These idle assets could be converted to revenue earning assets for various states. A National Policy like Sagarmala must be framed announced, giving room for both public sector and private sector plying interstate hovercrafts to ferry passengers and cargo between states, across states, from India’s western coast to eastern coast.

Before undersea tunnel linked France and British Isles, hovercrafts ferried passengers from one country to other. These are now not in use, and we can even buy second hand vessels, and if proper rules are framed like bus and lorry owners with National Permits moving in National Highways. Hovercrafts or other vessels can move in National Seaways.

Need of the hour is political will of the Narendra Modi Government. Tamilnadu once launched Poompuhar Shipping Corporation with much fanfare but its vessels were used only to ferry coal to our power stations. Gujarat Maritime Board successfully operates within the state, but its focus is on building Cities around Ports and creation of a cluster of Ports for connectivity. Why not Tamilnadu take up with the Union Government, the Sagarmala scheme announced by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Tamilnadu that too when J.Jayalalithaa was Chief Minister, who received him and went in same car to Kanyakumari as token of respect to Prime Minister. In Sagarmala let Hovercraft Ships too ply easing congestion in roads, making it easy for Chennaites to go with their vehicles in sea to Pondicherry in morning and return back by evening. Like local buses stopping wherever one shows hand, even where there are no ports let people get into hovercrafts from the sands of their beaches.

[The author was former Trustee of Tutucurin Port Trust between 1999-2001 and socio-political activist]