Page 17 - NIS English 1-15 April, 2026

Cover Story
National Maritime Day Special

fallen into neglect. Instead of focusing on shipbuild- for other public welfare projects. New India has
ing in India, it was considered preferable to charter learned from history and recognized its potential
foreign ships. This stagnated the ship-building eco- and pride. At the same time, the country is continu-
system in India, and dependence on foreign vessels ously setting new milestones in the development of
became a necessity. The result was that while 40 maritime infrastructure. Today, the maritime sector
percent of the trade was done on Indian ships 5-6 remains the backbone of the Indian economy, sup-
decades ago, that share reduced to only 5 percent, porting approximately 95 percent of the country’s
that is, we became dependent on foreign ships for trade by volume and 70 percent by value. At its core
95 percent of our trade is shipbuilding, often called the “mother of heavy
To put it simply, before the efforts made over the engineering.” It not only contributes significantly
past decade to revive this sector, India was paying to employment and investment but also enhances
approximately $75 billion, or approximately six lakh national security, strategic independence, and the
crore rupees, in freight to foreign shipping optimization of trade and energy supply
companies each year. This means that chains.
India’s current defense budget was The central government has
almost as much as the amount placed special emphasis on
spent on shipping. If this Reforms in the shipping ensuring that shipbuilding
amount had been invested sector are a continuation of takes place in India and
in India’s shipping indus- India’s decade-long reform provides employment
try earlier, the world journey. If we look at the to Indian citizens,
would be using Indian last ten or eleven years, the and lakhs of crores
ships today. The of rupees have
country would have transformation in India’s been invested in
saved money that maritime sector has this direction. As a
could have been used been historic result, the capacity

Narendra Modi, Prime Minister

April 1-15, 2026 || NEW INDIA SAMACHAR 15