8th Maritime States Devp Council meet begins

Kochi, Dec 21: The eighth meeting of the Maritime States Development Council (MSDC), the coordinating advisory body for the integrated development of major and non-major ports in the country, started here today.

Union Secretary, Shipping, A K Mahapatra presided over the meeting, which was attended by the chairmen of all major ports, secretaries or other senior officers of the maritime states, representatives of the Ministry of Defence, Coast Guard, DG Shipping, Inland Waterways Authority, Lighthouse and Lightships Department and other maritime-related government agencies.

The policy making session of the MSDC will be held here tomorrow under the chairmanship of Union Ports Minister T R Balu. Ministers from seven states and the Chief Minister of Goa are scheduled to attend tomorrow's meeting.

The states which will be represented by ministers are Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The Cochin Port Trust is hosting the meeting on behalf of the union Ministry of Shipping.

The MSDC was set up in in 1997 by the Centre to assess in consultation with the state governments the future development of existing and new minor ports.

Assessing the adequacy of the existing legal framework, formulation of a master plan/perspective plan for the development of minor ports, monitoring the development of minor, captive and private ports with a view to ensuring their integrated development with major ports and assessing the infrastructure requirements are some of the other major roles of the MSDC.

The last meeting (VIIth) of the MSDC was held in Bhubaneswar in 2005.

UNI