7 months ago
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Among the backers of a seaport astatine Great Nicobar — overmuch successful the media spotlight, pursuing a spate of captious commentaries — a favourite statement is that the installation volition presumption India arsenic a determination hub for maritime information and economical growth. Proponents cull suggestions that the larboard is simply a misguided task that threatens indigenous communities and risks ecological collapse. Instead, they contiguous it arsenic a strategical and commercialized game-changer.
That assertion is progressively questionable. A person look reveals that the project’s expected advantages are overstated, portion its structural flaws and biology costs are routinely, often wilfully, downplayed. At involvement is not conscionable the port’s ecological and commercialized viability, but whether the sweeping claims of economical and strategical translation attached to it are grounded successful reality.
A flawed rationale
The supporters’ logic is, astatine 1 level, understandable. India remains heavy babelike connected overseas ports, particularly Colombo and Singapore, for transshipment. The statement is that a mega larboard astatine Galathea Bay (Great Nicobar) would let India to wrest postulation from overseas hubs and assertion a greater stock of determination instrumentality trade. Yet, the proposition rests connected the faulty presumption that creating larboard capableness automatically attracts traffic. The acquisition with the Vallarpadam Port successful Kerala suggests otherwise. Transshipment hubs flourish not connected infrastructure unsocial but connected web connectivity, feeder links, cargo basal and bearer loyalty — nary of which tin beryllium assured by simply gathering a high-capacity terminal.
Galathea Bay suffers from heavy structural limitations. It has nary existent hinterland — nary municipality centre, concern zone, oregon logistics basal to enactment the port. Every instrumentality indispensable beryllium shipped successful and out, with nary section manufacture oregon cargo basal to anchor sustained growth. Even arsenic a transshipment hub, the larboard would beryllium connected feeder services that bash not yet exist. Unlike Colombo, which sits wrong a dense web of short-haul routes linking South Asia, East Africa and Southeast Asia, Nicobar lacks comparable connectivity. Creating specified a web would necessitate monolithic subsidies and semipermanent authorities enactment — a imaginable fewer shipping lines are apt to find commercially credible.
Geography, successful fact, whitethorn beryllium the project’s biggest handicap. Located astir 1,200 kilometres from the Indian mainland, Galathea Bay is excessively distant to enactment cost-effective feeder operations. Everything — from containers and provisions to larboard unit and substance — would request to beryllium shipped in, raising operating costs. Shipping schedules would person to beryllium importantly revised to see specified an isolated location, a imaginable fewer carriers are apt to find worthwhile.
It is instructive that Colombo, contempt long-standing bearer relationships and established networks, has managed less than 8 cardinal Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (or TEU, which is the portion of cargo capacity) a year. That Nicobar, with nary committed lines, aims to treble that figure, stretches credulity.
Misplaced imperatives
Some reason that the port’s economical rationale is strengthened by its strategical utility. A guardant subject beingness successful Great Nicobar, they say, enhances maritime domain consciousness and bolsters India’s deterrence posture successful the eastbound Indian Ocean. That whitethorn beryllium existent successful a constricted sense. INS Baaz, the existing naval facility, already supports surveillance operations. Yet, it is unclear wherefore a commercialized larboard is needed to enactment a subject mission, particularly erstwhile the Chinese navy has yet to frontally situation Indian interests successful the region. Even if strategical imperatives warrant a stronger posture, that nonsubjective ought to beryllium pursued transparently, not cloaked successful the connection of commercialized development.
Claims that Galathea Bay volition integrate with Vizhinjam (Kerala) and Vadhavan (Maharashtra) to signifier a seamless maritime arc are nary little fanciful. The imaginativeness overlooks the information that these ports run successful chiseled maritime theatres and are shaped by fundamentally antithetic commercialized realities. Vizhinjam, fixed its proximity to planetary shipping lanes, whitethorn plausibly gully transshipment postulation from Colombo — particularly if it delivers faster turnaround times and regulatory efficiency. Vadhavan has its ain commercialized logic and could thrive independently. Galathea Bay is geographically isolated, chopped disconnected from concern corridors, and lacks immoderate integrated cargo base. To dainty it arsenic a linchpin successful a aboriginal Indian maritime arc is to disregard the applicable requirements of hub functioning.
Lacking logistics
Mercantile trading patterns suggest that bearer commitments are often shaped by a reluctance to disrupt entrenched commercialized networks. Major shipping lines payment from operational rebates and integrated logistics astatine Colombo and Singapore — advantages that Indian ports conflict to match. Despite dense investment, Indian terminals proceed to levy importantly higher port-calling and handling costs. The acquisition astatine Krishnapatnam Port (Nellore, Andhra Pradesh) — a afloat withdrawal of instrumentality services successful 2024, and a strategical reorientation to bulk-cargo — powerfully illustrates however outgo structures and web integration proceed to signifier liner decisions.
For those who constituent to Vizhinjam arsenic a occurrence story, it bears highlighting that it, too, is simply a lawsuit of shipping relationships driving merchant postulation alternatively than integrated demand. While the larboard has logged an awesome 500 merchant calls, the bulk of postulation has travel from 1 shipping company— MSC — which, not coincidentally, is eyeing an ownership involvement astatine the terminal. That nary different large bearer has committed to shifting operations from Colombo underscores a broader truth: without beardown bearer relationships, adjacent well-situated ports conflict to pull sustained traffic.
While Galathea Bay cannot beryllium expected to replicate the show of a mainland port, it should beryllium wide that a terminal lacking a viable logistics ecosystem faces steep odds.
The Great Nicobar task is undoubtedly ambitious. Yet, ambition, divorced from economical and logistical realities, is nary look for success. A world-class larboard with fewer takers volition output neither power nor development. It volition basal alternatively arsenic a cautionary acquisition successful misplaced ambition.
Abhijit Singh is simply a retired naval serviceman and erstwhile caput of the Maritime Policy Initiative astatine the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi
