Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Shri Sarbananda Sonowal chaired the ‘Chintan Baithak’ of the Ministry in Delhi.
All of the Ministry’s senior officials, as well as the chairpersons of all major ports and top representatives from the various organizations under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, attended the baithak (MoPSW). The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the status of several government of India initiatives and programmes, including Asset Monetization, the National Infrastructure Pipeline, the implementation of the creative projects that each port identified during the previous Chintan Baithaks, automation of all weighbridges in ports, and the fiscal year’s capital expenditures. Shri Sonowal underlined the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to advance the Blue Economy during the meeting.
It was discussed that the Ministry should accomplish its capital expenditure goals in order to meet the government’s overall spending goals. All major ports should place a strong emphasis on making the best use of the land they have available and developing a plan for the future that will meet their current demands as well as those of the industry in the future.
The panel also discussed how, as all the ports have undertaken various projects to advance a green maritime environment, the focus should be on advancing green shipping and lowering the carbon footprint of port operations.
Initiating projects for energy generation from renewable sources, providing shore power to ships at berths, developing Oil Spill Response (Tier-1) capabilities at all ports, incorporating sustainable practices into terminal design, development, and operation, increasing green cover within port premises, and other initiatives are just a few of the many green port initiatives.
“The extensive discussions during this Chintan Meeting are linked with the Maritime Vision 2030 and Vision document 2047 to fulfil the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of “Atmanirbhar Bharat” with his key mantra of “Reform, Perform, and Transform,” according to Shri Sonowal, who made the statement during the meeting.
He added, “Our ports are performing better as we work toward installing world-class infrastructure facilities at ports. The blueprint for our strategy to grow and upgrade our ports and carry out our prime minister’s vision for port-led development would be greatly helped by this.
He assessed the state of each major port’s different projects that had been addressed during the previous Chintan Baithak and gave orders to the port officials to monitor these projects to ensure prompt completion.
As the minister of ports, shipping, and waterways, Shri Sonowal highlighted that “Our duty should be to empower and enable conduits via which these economic reforms might be implemented.
The brightest minds in the marine industry have gathered through this Chintan Baithak so that we may all deliberate, discuss, and decide on various issues and opportunities.
In reference to a special campaign from October 2 through October 31, the Minister stated that we should make every effort to assist the PM’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. This paragraph instructs us to maintain the port area as “jahanswacchta, wahanprabhuta.” He continued, saying that this special effort should be used to resolve any outstanding issues. He promised to establish a committee to oversee Swachhta Abhiyaan.
In this Chintan Baithak, a thorough discussion about GeM procurement was also held. Senior officials expressed their worries and ideas about buying from the GeM platform, and the minister said, “We will submit a proposal so that GeM becomes seamless and more inclusive.”
