It is the consistent endeavor of Government to improve the export related infrastructure to promote exports. India possesses adequate infrastructure but inadequacies are reported, time to time, in seamless transport through road, rail, ports and airports.

Details are in Annexure I.

Annexure I

Some salient steps taken by the Government are:

1.   To address constraints in the smooth movement of international cargo and resolving the issues relating to bottlenecks in trade by sea, air, and rail route, surfacing from time to time two high level committees, viz. the Standing Committee on Promotion of Exports by Sea (SCOPE - SHIPPING) and the Standing Committee on Promotion of Exports by Air (SCOPE- AIR) are functioning in the Department of Commerce.  The meetings of these two Committees are normally held every year.

2.   Department of Commerce administers “Assistance to States for Infrastructure Development of Exports” (ASIDE) Scheme since 2002-03, with the objective to involve the States in the export effort by providing assistance to the State Governments for creating appropriate infrastructure for the development and growth of exports. The outlay of the scheme has two components i.e. 80% of the funds (State component) and 20% (central component).

3.   An assistance of ₹ 5247 crores has been granted in 1642 projects under States component of ASIDE scheme since inception. An assistance of ₹ 1453.67 crores has been granted in 459 projects under Central component of ASIDE scheme since inception of the scheme.

4.  Till date, 12 Land Customs Stations and Border Haats have been sanctioned under ASIDE. 292 projects in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) have been funded under ASIDE. 7 projects by CONCOR or CWC have been granted assistance under ASIDE to develop infrastructure in ICDs and CFS. ₹ 71.19 crores assistance has been granted in 9 projects in augmenting infrastructure at various ports under ASIDE scheme.

5.   For the year 2014-15 Rs  274.12 Cr.  has been sanctioned out of the total funds of ₹ 800 cr. (Rs. 261.25 Cr. Under State Component & Rs.  12.87 Cr. under Central Component)

6.   In the year 2000, an Export Development Fund (EDF) was set up with the objective of promoting exports from the North East region (NER).  So far 78 projects have been sanctioned under EDF-NER.  ₹ 75.51 crores have been sanctioned to APEDA as corpus fund for the purpose of release of sanctioned grants under EDF-NER.

7.   Single Window Clearance for proposals for setting up of Inland Container Depots/Container Freight Stations (ICDs/CFSs) has been functioning since 1992 under the Department of Commerce.   The Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) in the Department of Commerce has sanctioned 286 ICDs / CFSs till 16-06-2014.  During the year 2013-14 IMC sanctioned 8 ICDs and 6 CFSs.  Out of 286 ICDs/CFSs, 190 are functional and 96 are under implementation.

8.   India has 12 major ports 6 each on the Eastern and Western coasts respectively and has rail connectivity to the arterial routes of Indian railways to have access to the hinterland. Private ports such as Dhamra, Krishnapatnam, Gangavaram, Mundra, etc have been connected by rail.

9.  The handling (offloading) capacity of the major ports is sufficient to match with the trade demands.  The capacity of all major ports as on 31-03-2014 was 800.52 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) against the traffic of 555.50 MMT handled in 2013-14.  The capacity utilization is around 70%.  As per the internationally accepted norms, the gap between the traffic  and the capacity should be around 30%.

10.   The aggregate capacity in twelve Major Ports as on 31st March, 2014 was 800.52 Million Tonnes per annum (MTPA) as against 744.91 Million Tonnes per annum as on 31st March, 2013. The capacity addition of 55.61 MTPA was achieved through a mix of addition of new berths & improvement in efficiency. The average turnaround time has improved from 4.24 days in 2000-01 to 2.25 days in 2013-14

11.   The following steps have been taken to expand the capacity and modernize ports in India

 (i)   Construction of new berths and terminals to enhance port capacity to minimize pre-berthing detention time and reduce turnaround time to vessels calling on the ports.

(ii)   Modernizing berths with state of the art loading / unloading equipment to improve operational efficiency.

(iii)  Deepening of channels and berths so that ports can accommodate larger vessels.

(iv) Improving rail / road connectivity of Ports for speedy evacuation of cargo.

12.   The Air cargo terminals at Airports of Airports of Authority of India and Joint Venture Airports are developed by the respective airport operators from time.  An Air Cargo Logistics Promotion Board has been constituted by Ministry of Civil Aviation in June, 2013 as an Inter-Ministerial group to steer the policy reforms recommended in the report of Working Group on Air Cargo Logistics, 2012.

13.  The Air cargo facility at Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata has been upgraded. Airport Authority of India has also invited private participation in six airports on PPP basis where new cargo terminals are within the scope of work. By 2016-17, over-all air cargo volumes may touch 4.4 million tonnes.

14.  In the last 20 years, the road network has more than doubled to 4.7 million kms in 2011-12. The 12th Five Year Plan emphasizes on conversion of the Golden Quadrilateral to six lane roads, completion of North-South and East-West corridors, Phase-III & IV of the National Highways Development Project, upgradation of National and State Highways to minimum two lane standards.

15.   Port connectivity programme has been taken up under Phase I of National Highway Development Project (NHDP) to provide National Highway connectivity to the major ports of the country. The development of the 4 lane connectivity to 12 Major Ports was approved under NHDP at a cost of ₹ 1896 crores in Dec 2000 for implementation through Special Purpose Vehicles. The connectivity to Kandla port on NH 8 was already on before the NHDP. Kolkatta port connectivity and Mumbai port connectivity have been dropped. 4 laning has already been completed in 7 port roads.

16.   The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) primarily involves establishment of a dedicated freight corridor (DFC) of around 1,500 km between Delhi and Mumbai with terminals at Dadri in the national capital region (NCR) of Delhi and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port near Mumbai. The area around the DFC would be developed as the DMIC. The DMIC is setting up 7 industrial corridors in Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharasthra. The Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata corridor, will pass through UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) is building Multi Modal Logistics Parks at various locations including around the DFC. The first phase of Multi Modal Logistics Park has been operationalised in Rajasthan at Kathuwas. CONCOR is also developing such parks at Vishakhapatnam, Jharsaguda, Nagpur and Naya Raipur

The information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.