policy / Gujarat Govt likely to scrap new port policy announced in 2019

•    New captive jetties to be allotted to HPCL, Nirma, Torrent etc under old port policy
•    Decision has been taken in light of Mittals and Ruias legal battle over port 

Government of Gujarat has placed its new port policy declared on 11 October 2019 in abeyance. New captive jetty allotments to various companies like HPCL, Nirma and Torrent will now be processed by Government under the previous port policy of Government of Gujarat. It is expected that the state government is planning to approve captive jetty projects of 30 million ton per annum capacity soon

It is understood that Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel objected to the new port policy of 2019 and filed a writ petition in the High Court of Gujarat opposing Essar’s Hazira port opting in under new policy. Since then, the Government is understood to have delayed the implementation of new port policy. 

The new port policy was meant to attract more coastal cargo and to cut logistics costs for customers by half. State Government had said that Gujarat has idle cargo-handling capacity of about 100 million ton per annum at captive jetties which could be fully used under the new port policy.

As per State Government, eight existing captive jetties had applied under the new port policy which expected investment of Rs 4000 crore to flow in the state. The policy change, announced by the Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) in October 2019, also allowed captive jetties to handle third-party cargo after signing a one-time supplementary agreement.