The cabinet has approved incorporation of the Sagarmala Development Company (SDC) with a share capital of Rs.1,000 crore.
Details:
With the formation of the SDC, the shipping ministry will now be able to provide equity support to the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and funding support to the residual projects under its ambitious Sagarmala Programme.
SDC will be under theadministrative control of the Ministry of Shipping.
SDC will be incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013, with an initial Authorized Share Capital of Rs. 1,000 Crore and a Subscribed Share Capital of Rs. 90 Crore.
SDC will Identify port-led development projects and assist the project SPVs in project development and structuring activities, bidding out projects for private sector participation, putting in place suitable risk management measures for strategic projects cutting across multiple States / Regions and obtaining requisite approvals and clearances.
Since the Identified projects will be undertaken by multiple agencies, SDC will also work as the nodal agency for coordination and monitoring of all the currently identified projects as well as other projects emerging from the master plans or other sources.
SDC will undertake the preparation of the detailed master plans for the Coastal Economic Zones (CEZs) identified as part of the NPP and provide a framework for ensuring the integrated development of Indian maritime sector.
Other important role assigned to SDC is to manage the coastal community development scheme and fund coastal community development projects identified under the Sagarmala Programme. The projects considered would be specific time-bound local interventions and innovative in nature.
SDC will be raising funds as debt/equity (as long term capital), as per the project requirements/ by leveraging .resources provided by the Government of India and from multi-lateral and bilateral funding agencies. SDC will also aim to increase the scope of private sector participation in project development.
Background:
Sagarmala is a strategic and customer-oriented initiative of the shipping ministry to modernize India’s ports so that port-led development can be augmented and 7,500 km of coastline across 13 states can be developed to contribute in India’s growth.
The shipping ministry estimates that Sagarmala can lead to annual logistics savings of close to Rs.35,000 crore and boost India’s merchandise exports to $110 billion by 2025. Apart from this, the Sagarmala project is estimated to create 10 million new jobs, 4 million of which will be direct employment.