Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday proposed a scheme for container manufacturing, with a budgetary allocation of Rs 10,000 crore over five years to create a globally competitive container manufacturing ecosystem.
To promote environmentally sustainable movement of cargo, Sitharaman said a scheme for enhancement of construction and infrastructure equipment (CIE) will be introduced to strengthen domestic manufacturing of high-value and technologically-advanced CIE.
The finance minister in her Budget speech proposed establishing a new Dedicated Freight Corridors connecting Dankuni in the East, to Surat in the West.
She also said that the government will operationalise 20 new National Waterways (NW) over the next 5 years, starting with NW-5 in Odisha to connect mineral-rich areas of Talcher and Angul and industrial centres like Kalinga Nagar to the Ports of Paradeep and Dhamra.
Sitharaman said a ship-repair ecosystem for inland waterways will also be set up in Varanasi and Patna.
The minister also proposed to launch a Coastal Cargo Promotion Scheme for incentivising a modal shift from rail and road, to increase the share of inland waterways and coastal shipping from 6 per cent to 12 per cent by 2047.
She said training institutes will be set up as Regional Centres of Excellence for development of the required manpower, adding that this will benefit youth in theentire stretch of the waterways to train and acquire skills.
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