IMC: Unifying India’s maritime industry for global leadership

What are the objectives and role of the Indian Maritime Centre (IMC) in the development of India’s maritime sector?

Government has drawn up a broad vision and framework under Maritime India Vision:2030 and Maritime Amrit Kal Vision:2047 to propel India into the forefront of Global Maritime Sector in the next few decades. This requires concerted efforts by all stake holders.     

IMC will play a catalytic role in achieving this vision by bringing together all maritime interests, projecting their needs to the Government and jointly working towards achieving a developed maritime sector in India. Helping in developing new policy frameworks to enhance growth of maritime sector and representing Indian in National and International bodies such as IMO will be one of the key objectives of IMC.

Our mission is to provide a structured framework for collaboration, connecting policymakers, industry leaders, and academic institutions to drive bilateral/multilateral innovation.

Together, we aim to create opportunities that enable equal partnerships, foster sustainable development, and shape the future of the global economy

What is the organisation structure and functions?

IMC will have a General Body and a Board of Directors. General Body gives general policy directions, while the Board of Directors implements them. The Board will be assisted by a Chief Executive Officer. The CEO will in turn be assisted by a Head (Operations) and Head (Administration) and functionaries from Finance and Administration and social media/PR side. In addition, we will have Task Forces on various subjects like ship building, coastal shipping, ports etc consisting of representatives of the Members representing relevant interests. These Task Forces will be assisted by national and international Experts.

Why do we need IMC when there are several associations of sub-sectors in maritime working for the interests and promotion of trade?

Presently, Associations work in standalone for their own objectives, and there is no single body to take up the common issues. There are many issues of common interest among different Associations. For example, taxation issues or setting up of a Maritime Development Fund. IMC can represent these issues from a single platform which can carry a larger weight than when individual Associations take up with the Government. The unique feature of IMC is that it will have not only the representatives of the Trade, but also representatives of central government, state governments, institutions, and regulatory bodies as its members. This will give an opportunity to the Trade to interact directly with the Government Bodies and resolve issues. IMC will thus provide a single window interface.

How do you intend to coordinate with these associations and build consensus towards common goals?

Our aim is to establish common platforms on specific subjects where the relevant associations meet regularly and discuss the issues. We will strive to achieve consensus through continuous deliberation and brainstorming.

What has been done so far? 

As IMC is a newly established Company, we had to start from the scratch and focus on fulfilling all regulatory formalities first, which we have completed. Simultaneously, we had to make efforts to attract more membership. We have reached out to other maritime associations, trade bodies, institutions and state maritime boards. I am glad that we started with seven members, and we now have a strength of 34 members. We also had interactions at Government level on how to take IMC forward to meet the objectives in a most coherent basis. We are planning to sign MOUs with Niti Ayog and German Maritime Centre to explore collaborative efforts. We are pro-actively working with the Government providing inputs and recommendations relating to maritime policy, maritime development, legislative reforms etc. Recently, we participated in the Singapore Maritime Week along with Government representatives and participated in various panel discussions.  

Have you identified and listed any priority issues to be taken up?

Yes. We have identified the following issues at present that need to be addressed immediately:

Shipping related issues relate to infrastructure status to Indian flagged vessels, review of regulatory overreach on age of vessels, availability of long-term liberalised funds, implementation of the initiatives identified to grow Indian flagged fleet, increase in the number of Indian seafarers through quality maritime education as well as supporting growth of nascent sectors like cruise tourism in the country.

Issues relating to ship building relating to constraints of funds, liberalised financing, skill enhancements, insurance, encouraging private sector participation, land acquisition, investment in R&D etc.

Port related issues relate to regulatory matters, green energy, induction of latest IT tools, inter and intra-port competition, capacity augmentation, operational efficiency improvement, availability of long-term liberalised funds, and creating safe and sustainable world class ports to address growing trade volume needs while reducing the logistics cost through better evacuation and cost-effective processes.

Our sector needs huge financial support for infrastructure growth including shipbuilding. Will IMC be involved in funding aspects also?

Yes. The task is humungous. The Maritime Amrit Kal Vision:2047 envisages an investment of about 80 lakh crores including private sector investment into Logistics, Ports and Shipping. We have to tap into global and local resources by having an attractive investment policy which includes conducive regulatory mechanism, tax incentives, availability of long-term credit on liberalised terms etc. IMC will strive to achieve this through policy interventions with the Government.

Government is also planning to set up a Maritime Development Fund with a corpus of Rs 25000 crores. Although it is a step in the right direction, the corpus needs to be increased suitably keeping in mind the huge requirements of funds, and all other possible sources to be tapped.    

What are the efforts of the Indian Maritime Centre (IMC) to strengthen startups in the maritime sector?

There is a lot of scope for innovation and digital initiatives in maritime sector. We recognise a need for developing a Startup Maritime India initiative to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation, startups and encouraging investments in the startup ecosystem of the country. We have Indian Maritime University and Institution of Naval Architects with us as a member. IIT, Chennai is in process of becoming a member. All the major ports are our members. We also have Cochin Shipyard Ltd and Shipyards Association of India as Members. With the help of these Members and other interested members, we will be drawing up schemes for Industry-Academia Partnership and Incubation, Funding Support and other incentives.