India to manufacture shipping container under “Make in India” campaign

News:

• India wants to manufacture shipping containers instead of relying on imports as part of a plan aimed at promoting the ‘Make in India’ campaign.
• India will appoint consultants to conduct a study into the capacity available within the country to take up container manufacturing. It will also approach foreign companies if technological expertise is required in building specialized containers.
• In 2014-15, container traffic in India’s 12 major ports grew 6.8% over that in the previous year. “There are many companies in the public sector which have idle capacity and can get into these new areas of manufacturing for their own and country’s benefit.
• Moving trade to containers is considered to have various advantages such as safety of cargo against damage and theft.
• It provides better space utilisation of the ship, leading to lowering of cost. It also gives way to carrying out multi-modal transportation since a container can be moved as easily from ship to truck or rail.
  Source: ET