Amaravati, Nov 27 (IANS): The government of Andhra Pradesh will formulate a maritime policy to transform the state into a maritime hub taking advantage of a long coastline.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday directed the officials to prepare a policy that can transform the 1,053 km long coastline.
He told a review meeting that the government's vision is to take Andhra Pradesh to the level of a world-class maritime state by developing the coastal line with innovative methods creating the necessary infrastructure for sustainable economic growth through efficient governance.
The officials informed the Chief Minister that the maritime policy has four components - port development, ship-building cluster, associated maritime activities, and port proximal area development. Focus areas on all these four items have already been identified.
Chandrababu Naidu directed the officials to mainly focus on developing high-capacity ports by adopting a hub and spoke model, connecting the port proximal areas with departments of Industries, tourism, Roads and Buildings (R&B), linking all the three industrial corridors in the state for future development, making the people as partners for providing basic amenities, encourage the P-4 model for the development of ports and harbors and also attract the world-level companies to set up ship-building and ship repair units in the state.
The Chief Minister wants the tourism and green energy programmes in the maritime sectors to be integrated, the establishment of a maritime university in the state along with making Indian Maritime University and IITs as partners for sharpening the skills of youth. The Chief Minister also told the officers to introduce radical reforms in this sector for best practices, arbitration and dispute resolution mechanisms.
He also stressed the need to strengthen the Andhra Pradesh Maritime Board to achieve these goals. The officers brought to the notice of the Chief Minister that the state holds second rank in the country in the category of non-major ports with a growth of 16 per cent in EXIM (Export and Import) cargo handling.
The state acquired first place in the export of seafood products last year with a 32 per cent growth rate.
The state currently has one major port in Visakhapatnam, five non-major ports, four green-field ports that are under construction and seven other ports which have been notified.