Cabinet approves Rs 1,624 crore for promotion of flagging of merchant ships in India

New Delhi [India], July 14 : In order to achieve the objective of Atmanirbhar Bharat, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the scheme for the promotion of flagging of merchant ships in the country by providing subsidy support to Indian shipping companies in global tenders floated by Ministries and Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs).
As per an official release, under the scheme, the Centre will provide Rs 1,624 crore over five years as a subsidy to shipping companies in global tenders floated by Ministries and CPSEs for the import of government cargo.
"For a ship which is flagged in India after February 1, and is less than 10 years at the time of flagging in India, the subsidy support would be extended at the rate of 15 per cent of the quote offered by the L1 foreign shipping company, or, the actual difference between the quote offered by the Indian flag vessel exercising the right of first refusal (ROFR) and the quote offered by the L1 foreign shipping company, whichever is less," the release said.
For a ship that is flagged in India after February 1, and which is between 10 to 20 years old at the time of flagging in India, the Centre informed that the subsidy support would be extended at the rate of 10 per cent of the quote offered by the L1 foreign shipping company, or, the actual difference between the quote offered by the Indian flag vessel exercising ROFR and the quote offered by the L1 foreign shipping company, whichever is less.
The government said the rate at which the above subsidy support is extended would be reduced by 1 per cent every year, till it falls to 10 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively, for the two-mentioned categories of ships.
The release further informed that for existing Indian flagged ship which is already flagged and less than 10 years old on February 1, the subsidy support would be extended at the rate of 10 per cent of the quote offered by the L1 foreign shipping company, or, the actual difference between the quote offered by the Indian flag vessel exercising ROFR and the quote offered by the L1 foreign shipping company, whichever is less.
For existing Indian flagged ship which already flagged and between 10 to 20 years old on February 1, the subsidy support would be extended at the rate of 5 per cent of the quote offered by the L1 foreign shipping company, or, the actual difference between the quote offered by the Indian flag vessel exercising ROFR and the quote offered by the L1 foreign shipping company, whichever is less.
The government added that the provisions of this subsidy support would not be available in the case where an Indian flagged vessel is the L1 bidder.
Under the scheme, the budgetary support would be provided directly to the Ministry/Department concerned.
"The subsidy support would be extended only to those ships which have bagged the award after the implementation of the scheme. Flexibility in the allocation of funds for expenditure from one year to another and within the various Ministries/Departments of the scheme. Ships older than 20 years would not eligible for any subsidy under the scheme," the release added.
In view of the enlarged scope of the scheme, this government said Ministry would seek allocation of such additional funds from the Department of Expenditure as may be required.
The scheme would be reviewed after five years.
In order to address the cost disadvantage suffered by Indian flag ships, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has in her Union Budget Financial Year 2021-22 speech on February 1, announced a scheme providing an amount of Rs 1,624 crore over five years to promote the flagging of merchant ships in India by providing subsidy support to Indian shipping companies in global tenders floated by Ministries and CPSEs.