India’s First National Centre Of Excellence For Green Port & Shipping

India’s first National Centre of Excellence for Green Port & Shipping (NCoEGPS) was launched at “INMARCO 2022” held in Mumbai.The INMARCO is a quadrennial International Maritime Conference and Exhibition, hosted by the Institute of Marine Engineers (India).

NCoEGPS

• It is a major initiative by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MOPSW) towards providing greener solutions.
• The NCoEGPS will be working under the framework of the Sagarmala programme of the MoPSW.
• The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is the knowledge and implementation partner for this project.

Aim

• The centre aims to develop a regulatory framework and alternate technology adoption road map for Green Shipping to foster carbon neutrality and circular economy (CE) in shipping sector in India.
• Green Shipping refers to the use of resources and energy to transport people and goods by ship and specifically concerns the reduction in such resources and energy in order to preserve the global environment from Green House Gases (GHGs) and environmental pollutants generated by ships.
• India intends to increase the share of renewable energy to 60% of the total power demand of each of its major ports from a present share of less than 10%.
• This will be through solar and wind-generated power.

Objectives

• To empower ‘Make in India’ in Port, Coastal and Inland water transport, and Engineering by developing state of art technologies and application products.
• To enable fast-track innovations in order to provide most appropriate solutions to various challenges in these sectors.
• To create a pool of competent manpower to the industry equipped with state of the art theoretical and practical knowhow.
• Self-sufficiency in providing short term solutions through scientific studies technology development technical arm in identifying and analysing complex problems and solving issues.

Significance

• It is a major attempt towards realising Mission Lifestyle for the Environment (LiFE) movement as it aims to transform ports and shipping turn more Environment friendly.
• The Center will interact with all the ports, shipping, maritime states in understanding their problems and offering solutions through well proven and upstream scientific approaches.

Related Initiatives

• The ports have also aimed to reduce Carbon emissions per ton of cargo handled by 30% by 2030.
• The Maritime Vision Document 2030 is a 10 Year blueprint on India’s vision of a sustainable Maritime sector and vibrant blue economy.
• India has been selected as the first country under the IMO’s Green Voyage 2050 project to conduct a pilot project related to Green Shipping.