Sanjeeva Reddy Nalamala

To Make India A Maritime HUB - Ship Operation - Ship Management - Ship Building - Ship Scrapping
Provide total tax free earnings irrespective of the duration of the services (without conditions of full filling 180 days or more in a financial year) rendered either working on coastal shipping or on coast guard vessels or on ocean going merchant fleet to Help develop struggling Maritime Industry and to help develop pool of human resources and ship building industry in vast Indian coast with vast maritime talented pool of professionals living/ working in many countries in the far east region and Dubai and to help develop necessary sea farers/ marine professionals to guard our vast coast to make it as secure and fool proof as possible to prevent 26/11 type or possibly worse attacks.
To-day maritime industry facing acute shortage of skilled and qualified manpower to operate and manage ships and the international maritime organisation (IMO) a UN body, declared this year as WORLD MARITIME DAY 2010: YEAR OF THE SEA FARER
The extra ordinary service rendered every day by some 1.5 million sea farers/professional , frequently under dangerous circumstances away from their families for short to very long periods and risking their lives, in delivering, to more than 6.5 billion people of the world, the wheat that makes our daily bread, the coal, gas and oil that provides our day to power to homes and industries moves our vehicles and many more day to day usage equipment and cement, steel, sugar, rice, chemicals to meet the needs the people and industry in general . This profession being unique , and all too often over-looked, contribution that the sea farers/professionals make for the well being of the entire world population. India has all the capabilities (vast coast, vast english speaking talent work force, vast experienced teaching and training faculties and institutions to make it happen).
Unfortunately there has never been good representation of experts from this field in the government in this most important but most neglected sector.
Most of the ship management companies across the globe mainly located and operated from Hong Kong and Singapore and UK and a few other countries including USA are being well managed by most highly qualified / experienced Indian maritime professionals only.
Unfortunately, the author is not in possession of statistics to prove that the kind of foreign exchange the country is paying to foreign shipping companies to trade in/out Indian Cargoes and companies having to build ships in foreign countries spending billions of foreign exchange every year.
Maritime transport sector is the cheapest means of transport and as road map for Indian manufacturing industry is in place and maritime sector is the key to provide necessary infrastructure for transporting our products into global market economically and make our products compete in the global markets..

Unless there are significant incentives to sea farers and maritime professional, this industry is already facing serious problems and likely to aggravate these problems which indirectly affect fast developing countries like India and China. To develop this sector China had already taken many initiatives of supporting ship building industry and heavy tax benefits to encourage re-locate ship management companies which are now located in Singapore, Hongkong and Dubai to all their major cities of china. India has the biggest advantage of developing human resources to provide qualified english speaking maritime professionals to take over the world maritime industry provided Indian government comes out with an open policy on Tax Benefits withour strings attached to it.
Keeping long term vision in mind all that the Government has to do in this budget are :
1. Provide Tax Free Incentives with no strings attached for human resource development to colleges and training institutes
2. Provide Tax free incentives to ship management companies located and operating from India.
3. Provide Tax Free Incentives to all ship owning dealing with ship owning and ship management companies handling ships from shore and dealing with and sea farers working on Coastal Shipping and international shipping.
4. Remove minimum period working away from Indian coast for Tax Free benifits.
5. Help ship building industry and allow it to develop by providing /supporting with all possible financial help with tax free benifits for atleast 20 years.
6. Allow 100% foreign direct investment in this ship building and ship repair sector with no strings attached for foreign expertese in ship design and ship building to work in Industry [ ease restriction on work visa and impose no tax to encourage flow of ship design and ship building knowledge from fm korea and Japan to India ]
7. Put no time frame (like minimum 180 days one has to be away from India etc..) to sector and their earnings.
8. Simplify and make it easy for sea farers to obtain their CDC (Continuous Discharge Certificate) and Passports.
9 Tax Benifits to ship repair and ship building industry and to all people working in this industry.
Above will help motivate youngsters to "GO TO SEA" and help struggling maritime industry which is the backbone of world economy and Indian economy in particular and to save loss of huge foreign exchange and to encourage use of economical coastal sea transport.

Sanjeeva Reddy Nalamala

sreddyn@gmail.com