DP World Ports Valarpadam/Cochin Terminal - a Big unitised scam??

By some indications, this is a scam of larger proportions than the Commonwealth Games fiasco. Take a huge unnecessary project, inflate the costs, get your cronies to cover the inflated expenses by bringing in a private player like DP World in this case, and when the project obviously fails, cry wolf, and then get out 

http://moneylife.in/article/dp-world-ports-vallarpadam-container-terminal-the-numbers-behind-point-towards-another-huge-scam/20131.html

If anything, a full & proper enquiry should be done on how this high-cost white elephant came into being in the first case. There is room for good Kerala cuisine in Tihar Jail, too.

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WTF can we do about improving coastal and inland shipping in India??

Here's a recent post by me on the Merchant Navy group website:-

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/MerchantNavy/message/15431

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There is enough of a lobby and interest in reviving the age-old superioriity of shipping that existed in the Indian Ocean environs, especially after the advent of Islam, as Arab sailors have shown for centuries. It is there in the strangest of places, but all the same, it has an effect.

For example, Amitav Ghosh, renowned author and global traveler, in his IBIS trilogy of books as well as other books, makes plenty of references to the subject - and he is widely read by those who matter.

Here, for example, is a blog entry by him on the subject, recent and being widely discussed not just on the internet but in the corridors of power in Delhi and beyond:-

http://amitavghosh.com/blog/?p=996

http://amitavghosh.com/blog/

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quote:""it will be evident at a glance that many of the vessels in the opium fleet were of great size, fully the equal of  ocean-going sailships. As it made its way downriver, the opium fleet would stop every night at a river-port. Each of these ports was equipped with the infrastructure to deal with a substantial volume of shipping. Some of these ports, like Chhapra, attracted immigrants from far away  . . " unquote.

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It requires less than 1/6th of a bhp to transport 1 tonne of ship or boat. With increasing fuel prices, can we leave decision making about shipping in India, seagoing or coastal or river, to people who are still in awe of the caucasian way of things, choosing to give our own Indian ways an inferiority complex born of their own insecurities?

I have been able to put my views across where they matter - how is it that, unlike in aviation, people who are supposed to be technically sound in decision making for sea commerce, have not been to sea for an average of over 22 years? (That's the data for people over a particular rank and level at DGS, incidentally, which I saw in passing . . . on the table of somebody who matters.)

Humbly submitted.

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Please read this?



http://moneylife.in/article/how-coastal-and-inland-shipping-has-been-allowed-to-die-and-what-needs-to-change-quickly/19609.html



      How coastal and inland shipping has been allowed to die and what needs
to change quickly
      September 09, 2011 01:38 PM |
      Veeresh Malik

Published at http://www.moneylife.in/

The wars of the present and the future are going to be fought using economic tools more than military might. Building this economic power requires the revival of seafaring strength that was allowed to deteriorate on account of a short-sighted and corrupt approach.

Before you take down a fence, you might want to know why the previous owner put it up.
- GK Chesterton

On cabotage in India, and the games that some entities play . . .

Where does national interest, security and the economy come in, or is the country up for sale again, to a bunch of people who will sell out for 30 pieces of silver? Or even less?

http://moneylife.in/article/on-the-push-to-change-cabotage-rules-largely-due-to-a-one-sided-contract-thats-harmful-to-cochin-port-trust/19438.html

On the push to change cabotage rules, largely due to a one-sided contract that’s harmful to Cochin Port Trust

""A one-sided contract between Cochin Port Trust, the landlord, and DP World Ports Vallarpadam Terminal, its tenant, has led to intense lobbying over cabotage rules. A local problem, which has more to do with a local solution, is being used as a catalyst to push a deeper agenda with a national bearing. The country's interests are at the stake, once again, for reasons that increasingly appear to be very shady  . . .""

Read on:-

http://moneylife.in/article/on-the-push-to-change-cabotage-rules-largely-due-to-a-one-sided-contract-thats-harmful-to-cochin-port-trust/19438.html