Government to provide land at near zero cost to shipyards investing in shipbuilding and repair facilities in India

₹15,000 crore, as per estimates from the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways. The guidelines speak of three to four shipbuilding clusters in coastal states, with only one in each state.

Each one will have a manufacturing capacity of about 1.2 GT.Mint reported in August about a government plan to attract investment worth ₹75,000 crore ( ₹25,000 crore each) in three shipbuilding clusters. It also reported in July that state-run firms were looking to tie up with global shipbuilders.

India is also looking to Japan and Korea for shipbuilding initiatives.Under the greenfield shipbuilding cluster development scheme, the land parcel earmarked for the cluster will be transferred to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) set up as an equal joint venture of the state and central government, or wholly owned by the central government or any of its agency, by the respective state government at ₹1. The guidelines also specifies that in cases where government land is not available, the same may be acquired by the state government at its own cost.

This would be in addition to any industrial/maritime policy support that may be provided by the state government to attract investments in the shipbuilding cluster.The SPV will develop common infrastructure, manage operations and maintenance activities of the cluster, provide access to common maritime assets to cluster, develop internal roads, rail spurs, and utilities and also attract investments from shipyards and ancillary industries.The selected shipyard will invest in yard-specific infrastructure, equipment, and operations on a commercial basis and pay an agreed annual lease or concession fee to the SPV. This would be a nominal amount as cost of land would largely be borne by the state