The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave approval to the Ministry of Shipping's Major Port Authorities Bill, 2016. This will grant autonomy to major ports across the country to function with greater efficiency.
In a bid to promote the expansion of port infrastructure and facilitate trade and commerce, "the proposed bill aims to decentralise decision making and to infuse professionalism in the governance of ports," an official statement read. The new Bill would help in faster and transparent decision making, which would benefit the stakeholders and would thus lead to better project execution capability.
The new Bill proposed a simplified composition of the Board of Port Authority that will comprise 11 members from the present 17-19 members. Additionally, under the new Bill, all future public-private partnerships (PPP) operators will have the freedom to fix tariff rates based on market conditions and would only be required to notify the port authority.
The port authority board has been delegated the task to fix rates for other port services and assets such as the land. The bill also proposed the idea to empower port authorities to lease land for other port-related use for up to 40 years and non-port related use for up to 20 years.
The bill also proposes to introduce the concept of internal audit of the functions and activities of the central ports along the lines of Companies Act, 2013. It also includes provisions of CSR and development of infrastructure by the port authority.
"An independent review board has been proposed to be created to carry out the residual function of the erstwhile TAMP for Major Ports, to look into disputes between ports and PPP concessionaires, to review stressed PPP projects and suggest measures to review stressed PPP projects," the statement added.
The Adani Ports stock was trading at Rs 286 at around 11:22 pm on Thursday, up 0.67 percent from its previous close on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
