The Centre government plans to monetise assets worth Rs 10,000 crore this fiscal year to boost the share of public-private partnerships (PPP) in ports, according to media reports.
The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has submitted a monetisation pipeline of Rs 10,000 crore to NITI Aayog, the central think tank and nodal government body for asset monetisation. The pipeline consists of five to seven projects.
Shipping Secretary TK Ramachandran had recently stated that the Centre aims to increase the share of PPP at government-owned ports to 80 per cent by the end of the decade. The newly identified projects form a small portion of the shipping ministry's FY25 pipeline, which mainly focuses on pending mega projects.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had urged the shipping ministry last October to expedite the monetisation process of identified projects.
"Out of 12 major ports, nine have at least 31 projects that have been identified and approved for asset monetisation. I would think the ministry should go speedily on these so that those projects can get monetised. That is expected to give around Rs 14,483 crore," Sitharaman said at the Global Maritime India Summit 2023 in Mumbai on 19 October 2023.
