New Delhi: The government on Thursday said 44 projects worth Rs 30,221 crore are under implementation under public-private-partnership (PPP) mode in the ports sector.
"Forty-four projects worth Rs 30,220.78 crore are at different stages of completion" under PPP mode in the ports sector, Minister of State for Shipping Krishanpal Gurjar told Lok Sabha in a written reply.
He said the government had taken a total of 72 projects for the sector under PPP mode and of these 28 projects of Rs 8,945.86 crore have completed.
India has 12 major ports - Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) which handle approximately 61 percent of the country's total cargo traffic.
India has one of the largest merchant shipping fleet among the developing countries and is ranked 17th in the world, he said.
"Shipping plays an important role in the transport sector of India's economy. Indian maritime sector facilitates not only transportation of national and international cargoes but also provides a variety of other services such as cargo handling services, ship building and ship repairing, training of sea-farers etc," he said.
Indian shipping industry is subject to the macro-economic factors of international trade and commerce, as well as the national economic scenario, he added.
