: Port Authorities Bill, 2020 passed by Rajya Sabha #FinanceIndia #StockMarketNEWS Port Authorities Bill, 2020 passed by Rajya Sabha New Delhi, Feb 10 (KNN) Rajya Sabha passed Major Port Authorities

@StockMarketNEWS Mon 15 Feb, 2021

Posted in: #FinanceIndia #StockMarketNEWS

Port Authorities Bill, 2020 passed by Rajya Sabha #FinanceIndia #StockMarketNEWS
Port Authorities Bill, 2020 passed by Rajya Sabha New Delhi, Feb 10 (KNN) Rajya Sabha passed Major Port Authorities Bill, 2020 on Wednesday today. The Bill was moved by Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State (In charge) for Ports, Shipping &Waterways. Now the Bill will go to the President of India for his assent, according to an official statement.

To promote the expansion of port infrastructure and facilitate trade and commerce, the Major Port Authorities Bill 2020 bill aims at decentralizing decision making and to infuse professionalism in governance of major ports. It imparts faster and transparent decision making benefiting the stakeholders and better project execution capability.

The Bill is aimed at reorienting the governance model in central ports to the landlord port model in line with the successful global practice. This will also help in bringing transparency in operations of Major Ports. This will empower the Major Ports to perform with greater efficiency on account of full autonomy in decision making and by modernizing the institutional framework of Major Ports.

The Bill is more compact in comparison to the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963 as the number of sections has been reduced to 76 from 134 by eliminating overlapping and obsolete Sections.

The new Bill has proposed a simplified composition of the Board of Port Authority which will comprise of 11 to 13 Members from the present 17 to 19 Members representing various interests. A compact Board with professional independent Members will strengthen decision making and strategic planning.

Provision has been made for the inclusion of representatives of State Government in which the Major Port is situated, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Defence and Customs, Department of Revenue as Members in the Board apart from a Government Nominee Member and a Member representing the employees of the Major Port Authority.

The role of Tariff Authority for Major Ports (TAMP) has been redefined. Port Authority has now been given powers to fix tariffs which will act as a reference tariff for purposes of bidding for PPP projects. PPP operators will be free to fix tariff- based on market conditions. The Board of Port Authority has been delegated the power to fix the scale of rates for other port services and assets including land.

An Adjudicatory 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 and suggest measures to revive such projects and to look into complaints regarding services rendered by the ports/ private operators operating within the ports.