The Union Shipping Ministry intends to start a Ro-Ro service from Chennai to Mundra for the benefit of car manufacturers in Tamil Nadu. Ro-ro is an abbreviation for roll-on/roll-off, referring to ships that carry wheeled cargo.

This was announced by Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari while inaugurating the 2nd edition of the Coastal Shipping and Inland Water Transportation (IWT) Business Summit 2014 here over video conference.

With the launch of the service, the Minister said that car manufacturers from Chennai could send their trucks to Mundra. This would also benefit automobile manufacturers in Delhi. According to him, the Government has taken a lot of initiatives to develop this sector by giving top priority to coastal shipping and inland water transportation.

Lower tariffs Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy suggested lowering port charges on coastal shipping to affordable levels at major and non-major ports. Pointing out that the tariff and service standards at ports should never stand in the way of promoting coastal shipping, he said that other issues such as corporate taxation, manning scales and Cabotage restrictions need the Ministry’s special attention.

Better coastal shipping and inland water transportation have the potential to trigger the region’s development by offering the most economic transport solution to industries. “It is very unfortunate that in spite of the inherent advantages and many known benefits, we have not been very successful in exploiting the immense potential of coastal shipping and waterways in our country,” he said.

Experts from the industry bodies, including The Federation of Indian Export Organisation, Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India, Cochin Steamer Agents Association, Cochin Custom House Agents Association, participated in the meet.

The summit was organised under the aegis of India Seatrade and the meet witnessed discussions on various topics like Government and industry level initiatives required for the growth of the sector, developing Ro-Ro service, improving bunkering facilities at all major ports.

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