Achievement of shipping ministry?s aim of promoting fair competition in the development of ports is expected to be delayed, as some stakeholders have demanded changes in the draft policy. The opposition of the draft, which seeks to restrict private monopoly in ports, also found reflection in Parliament as Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley asked shipping minister GK Vasan to consider the regional presence of some companies before finalising the policy.
The ministry had issued the draft policy on January 27 and sought comments of stakeholders within 15 days. The ministry was to notify the policy immediately after receiving the comments and accordingly fine-tuning the policy.
But for objections raised by private players and the drama created in Rajya Sabha by NK Singh, Janata Dal (United) and Jaitley on March 16, officials in the ministry now feel that the policy is unlikely to be notified before April-end if no further objections are raised, the officials told FE.
The drama started when Singh sought the details of the draft policy from the shipping minister on March 16. In reply to his questions, Vasan specified two key safeguards that the ministry has proposed in the policy to prevent monopoly in the port terminal development and operations.
According to the policy, if there is only one private terminal operator in the port for a specific cargo, the operator will not be allowed to bid for the next berth for the same cargo in the port. Another safeguard is that existing private player is allowed to bid for the project only if it does not have more than two BOT projects in the same type of cargo at the port or at any port within the radius of 100 km.
?But as Singh was about to sit down, looking satisfied with the answers, Jaitley stood up and posed a supplementary to the minister. The BJP leader asked the minister to factor in the regional presence of companies saying that the presence of some of the players in the region is becoming a bit too apparent,? a senior official in the ministry said.
On being asked by FE when the policy is expected to come in force, shipping secretary K Mohandas said, ?We have received comments on the measures and are currently discussing them. The policy will be notified soon?.
However, another senior official dealing with the subject said ?it would take time to finalise the draft as the point Jaitley raised would take time to discuss. Once finalised, the draft has to be forwarded to the Law Ministry for comments. We would be able to notify the policy by middle of April or end of that month?.
The draft is an amendment to guidelines issues in year 2007. The change in the norms have also been proposed to reduce the number of court cases and expediting the award of National Maritime Development Programme (NMDP)-a public-private participation programme to increase annual capacity of 12 major ports to over 1,000 million tonne (MTs) by awarding 276 projects by March 2012.
As per the earlier guidelines, an operator of any one terminal at a major port was barred from bidding for the next berth. But the same could not prevent litigation as firms like Gateway Terminals India Pvt Ltd, P&O Australia and PSA-Sical dragged the government in various courts, seeking permission to bid for more projects.
