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The National Shipping Board (NSB) held its first 'Sagar Samvad' in New Delhi, themed 'Charting the Roadmap Towards Maritime India Vision 2030 and Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047'.
Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal chaired the inaugural edition, launched the Board's first official website and received its annual report for 2025-26 from NSB Chairperson Sameer Kumar Khare.
An NSB panel proposed a five-pillar roadmap — fiscal reform, assured cargo support, access to competitive financing, regulatory streamlining and ease of doing business — which it argued could add 100 ships to India's fleet within five years.
Minister of State Shantanu Thakur said India pays close to $75 billion a year in freight to foreign shipping lines to move cargo including crude oil, gas, coal and urea; panellists said flying the Indian flag is 16 to 20 per cent costlier than operating under a foreign one.
Sonowal said port capacity is being quadrupled to 10,000 million tonnes a year by 2047, and acknowledged the Rs 10,000 crore Container Manufacturing Assistance Scheme, under which Maersk is now ordering containers built in India.
Statutory advisory body that counsels the government on shipping policy, tonnage, seafarer welfare and port-linked maritime development. It is older than the ministry it advises.
Nodal ministry for ports, shipping, inland waterways and the Sagarmala programme; owns the Maritime India Vision 2030 and Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 targets.
The maritime regulator's head, responsible for ship registration, safety, seafarer certification and the enforcement of merchant shipping law. The Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 retains the government's power to appoint this officer and renamed the post from Director-General of Shipping.
The other statutory advisory board retained by the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025, dealing specifically with seafarer welfare — the subject of the Sagar Samvad session chaired by the Labour Minister.
The unified regulator for financial services in India's international financial services centre; represented at the tonnage panel because ship financing and leasing through GIFT City is one route to the 'competitive financing' pillar.
Industry body representing Indian shipowners; it operates the enquiry process through which the Right of First Refusal for coastal cargo is exercised. Its Chief Executive Officer, Anil Devli, is an NSB member.
The governing statute for Indian merchant shipping and the law under which the National Shipping Board now functions. It repealed the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 and the Coasting Vessels Act, 1838, condensing 561 sections into 325 clauses across 16 parts. The Bill was passed by Parliament on 11 August 2025 and received the President's assent on 18 August 2025. It retains the advisory boards — the National Shipping Board and the National Welfare Board for Seafarers — and renames the Director-General of Shipping as the Director-General of Marine Administration.
The predecessor statute, under which the National Shipping Board was first constituted in 1958. Its repeal is why the Board's mandate was described at Sagar Samvad as renewed and strengthened under the re-enacted law and the new National Shipping Board Rules.
Repealed alongside the 1958 Act by the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 — a nearly two-century-old colonial statute finally removed from the books.
A ten-year roadmap to strengthen the blue economy through port capacity, logistics efficiency, shipbuilding and inland waterways.
Key: Launched in 2021, comprising about 150 initiatives across 10 themes; it is the nearer of the two horizons in the Sagar Samvad theme.
The long-horizon maritime blueprint aligned to Viksit Bharat, covering ports, shipping, shipbuilding and seafarer capacity.
Key: Launched in 2023 with over 300 action points across 11 themes; the panel at Sagar Samvad linked the 100-ship proposal to its target of placing India among the world's top five ship-owning nations by 2047.
Port-led development — modernising ports, improving port connectivity, developing port-linked industry and coastal community development.
Key: Launched in 2015 as a long-horizon programme by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways; the port-side counterpart to the fleet-side agenda discussed at Sagar Samvad.
Build domestic container manufacturing capacity so that India is not dependent on imported containers for its own trade.
Key: Worth Rs 10,000 crore; Sonowal cited Maersk, a global shipping major, now ordering containers built on Indian soil.
Make Indian shipyards competitive against subsidised foreign yards by supporting them after delivery rather than at order.
Key: Approved by the Union Cabinet in December 2015 for shipbuilding contracts signed between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2026; assistance is paid after ship delivery at 20 per cent of the contract price or the fair price, whichever is lower, reduced by 3 percentage points every three years.
Give Indian-flagged vessels priority in carrying domestic coastal cargo.
Key: Enquiries are floated among Indian-flag vessels; if an Indian vessel offers competitive rates it may exercise the right, and the no-objection certificate for a foreign vessel is then denied. Panellists noted that the requirement to MATCH foreign rates blunts the preference when the Indian cost base is 16 to 20 per cent higher.
Reserve carriage of cargo between two Indian ports for Indian-flagged vessels.
Key: Progressively relaxed — from March 2016 for ports transshipping at least half the containers they handle, and further eased in May 2018 to let foreign-owned vessels perform certain cabotage operations without special approval. The relaxation is the counterweight to RoFR in any discussion of Indian tonnage.
Every merchant ship is registered in a country and flies that country's flag, which determines the law it operates under, the tax it pays, the wage and welfare rules for its crew, and the registration and inspection regime it faces. A nation's 'tonnage' is the carrying capacity of the fleet flying its flag. India's problem is not a shortage of cargo but a shortage of Indian-flagged capacity to carry it: the cargo moves, and the freight is earned abroad. Raising Indian tonnage means making the Indian flag cheaper to fly, which is why the Board's roadmap is dominated by fiscal and financing measures rather than by direct fleet purchase. Two instruments pull in opposite directions here — the Right of First Refusal favours Indian vessels for coastal cargo, while successive cabotage relaxations have opened coastal movement to foreign vessels.
Simple Analogy: It is the difference between a country that buys a lot of taxi rides and a country that owns the taxis. India generates enormous freight demand; the fares are collected by fleets registered elsewhere, and the $75 billion is the size of that fare book.
The cargo named in the release — crude oil, gas, coal and urea — is precisely the import basket on which India has the least room to substitute. Fleet dependence is therefore an energy-security question as much as a trade-cost one.
The NSB Chairperson placed the exercise inside the blue economy framing of Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047. Read Sagarmala (ports), MIV 2030 (ten-year roadmap) and MAKV 2047 (long horizon) as three layers of the same agenda.
India supplies one of the world's largest seafaring workforces. The labour session took up wage taxation, pension gaps and welfare provisions, tying maritime ambition to the youth and labour policy agenda and to gender disparity in maritime employment.
The presence of the IFSCA at the tonnage panel points to ship leasing and financing through the International Financial Services Centre at GIFT City as the intended answer to the 'competitive financing' pillar.
The Merchant Shipping Act, 2025 repealed both the 1958 Act and the Coasting Vessels Act of 1838, and cut 561 sections to 325 clauses — a concrete instance of the wider statutory consolidation and colonial-law repeal exercise.
GS Paper 3 > Indian Economy > Infrastructure: Ports, Shipping and Waterways; GS Paper 2 > Statutory Bodies
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Bodies
General Awareness > Infrastructure and Trade
General Awareness > Transport and Infrastructure
High — ports, shipping and blue-economy targets recur in UPSC Prelims and Mains, and the maritime visions are staple general-awareness material.
'Ocean dialogue' — the National Shipping Board's stakeholder platform, held for the first time in 2026.
The carrying capacity of the fleet registered under a country's flag; augmenting Indian tonnage was one of the two panel themes.
The mechanism giving Indian-flagged vessels priority for coastal cargo, conditional on matching foreign freight rates.
The reservation of carriage between two domestic ports for national-flag vessels; progressively relaxed in India from 2016.
The 2023 long-horizon maritime blueprint whose targets include placing India among the world's top five ship-owning nations.