Maritime Economy: Driving India's Growth (E) - Promo

The Indian Shipping Industry has over the years played a crucial role in the development of trade and commerce. India with a coastline of over 7500 KM’s is strategically located on the world’s significant shipping routes, it has 13 major ports and 200 minor ports. Seaports are vital for India’s International trade as over 95% of trade by volume and 70% by value takes place through its ports. As India seeks to become one of the leading manufacturing hubs of the world and grow its economy to 5 trillion dollars by 2024, India’s ports need to become more efficient so that goods for imports and exports pass through it faster. And for this the role of Science and technology play an important role to improve efficiency in ship turnaround times, modernisation of ports, containerisation, navigation and enhanced port security. It is also essential to ensure that both capacity and efficiency of these ports are increased to meet the growing demands of India’s International trade. And with the government providing a major thrust in port modernization & new port development infrastructure, India’s merchandise exports touched a record $418 billion in 2021-22, exceeding the government’s target by about 5% and recording a staggering 40% growth over the previous year. But, despite the upward trend in export, the potential of our ports and shipping sector has still not been realised to its full potential as compared to our neighbours in Asia and Middle East, contributing just 1% of India's GDP. To address this, the Government of India’s Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has taken up various Initiatives like the Sagarmala Programme and Maritime India Vision 2030; which envisages a Rs 3 lakh crore investment in port projects which will generate more than 20 lakh jobs and unlock annual revenue potential for major ports worth over Rs 20,000 crores. So, in this special two-episode series, we will talk about the history and significance of major ports in India. We will take you on an exclusive journey to the Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Port formerly called Kolkata Port Trust, located in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal it is situated around 203 kilometres from the sea, on the river Hooghly. It is one of the premier ports in India and is rightly called the gateway to Eastern India including Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh and the two land-locked Himalayan nations of Nepal and Bhutan. It is the only riverine port of India and was started in 1870 making it the oldest operating port in the country. The Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Port handled over 61.368 MT of cargo traffic and 3189 vessels during 2020-21. In this episode We will talk about how major ports in India function on a day-to-day basis and will also take a closer look into the technologies being deployed for their smooth operation like Real Time container tracking applications, RFID container tracking and identification system, full container scanner and many other modern facilities. This and much more in this episode of science for a self-reliant India, only on India Science.

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