EDITORIAL COMMENT


Can India overcome its obstacles?


India undoubtedly has the skills and expertise to potentially establish itself as a mass producer of small boats, yet it has failed to take on rivals such as Bangladesh. What’s holding the country back? (Credit: Hindustan Shipyard Limited)


appear that India is finally facing up to its problematic record in the boatbuilding department. On paper, India should be giving its Asian neighbours a serious run for their money; the country is producing some excellently-trained naval architects, and enjoys a niche foothold in warship construc- tion. However, while Bangladesh has capitalised on a combination of inexpensive manpower, state-of-the-art yard technol- ogy and generous governmental subsidies to grow its ship- and boatbuilding sector (see Ship & Boat International March/April 2011, page 30), India continues to struggle to get its boat construction ambitions off the ground. Warships are fine, it would appear; but regularly producing patrol vessels seems a step too far. It is easy to speculate from a distance,


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with many assuming that qualified Indian architects are simply relocating to established shipbuilding hotspots, chiefly for better wages. However, for a fuller picture of what is amiss, the Strategies, Human Resources, Infrastructure, Processes and Security (SHIPS) 2011 conference, hosted in Kerala, on the southwestern coast of India, in September 2011, highlighted some of the country’s current boatbuilding deficiencies, in fairly unflinching fashion. Hosted jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the National Maritime Founda- tion (NMF) – the latter a non-governmental maritime think tank – the event, accorded the theme ‘Build Ships – Build India’, saw


s one old maxim has it, the patient can’t be cured until he acknowl- edges he is sick, and it would


speakers bypass the usual tentative and vague pronouncements sadly common with too many modern marine conferences of this nature, and instead take a sharp scalpel to India’s ailing ship construction industry. Identifying India as lagging well behind


Vietnam and the Philippines, not to mention the major ship-exporting nations such as Korea, Japan and China, the speakers identified a stockpile of drawbacks. A lack of vision and substandard project manage- ment were roundly blamed for severe delays in delivery schedules, as were what speakers perceive to be an overall lack of experienced design engineers, shoddy labour relations and outdated governmental policies. On the latter point, it would appear that, while Bangladesh is pulling out all the stops to grant its yards a competitive advantage, with green channel status for all boatbuild- ing material imports just one of its strate- gies, India’s government doesn’t seem to be offering much support to its shipbuilding sector. The SHIPS conference also threw the


country’s coastal and inland sectors under the spotlight, revealing that dredging remains fairly neglected in India, and highlighting the nation’s need to develop a solid port infrastructure – particularly given that 68% of Indians currently living below the poverty line are situated in coastal areas. Technology would also appear to be a bugbear, with speakers calling for more investment in CAD/CAM, high productiv- ity management tools, optimally designed work spaces, heavy-liſt cranes and, crucially, personnel skills. And that checklist was


Ship & Boat International January/February 2012


not just limited to the state-owned yards; private sector builders would appear to also be lacking vital resources. It’s a well-worn cliché that ship- and


boatowners will always sniff out the cheaper deals on the market, but nobody in their right mind is going to stand for delayed orders, nor compromise on structural integrity. Te tragedy is that, lacking a viable boatbuilding infrastructure, India is missing out on what could be a healthy injection of GDP. For instance, many modern yachts are incorporating ideas gleaned from military craſt construction into their designs. Tis is a lesson from which India could benefit. Diversification into new vessel types has pulled yards out of recession in the past, most notably in Europe. However, when your own national business representatives and maritime confederation members are bemoaning a dearth of heavy-liſt cranes, such strategies remain purely conceptual. Ship & Boat International would be


interested in hearing from anybody involved in the Indian boatbuilding sector, from designers to the yards themselves, to get their take on the problem, and to hear what they may identify as possible avenues out of the current rut. Perhaps we should be thankful that the industry has at least had the guts to come out and acknowledge the malaise, but, as always, such speculation must be followed with action if change is to come about. SBI


Finally, Ship & Boat International would like to wish its readers a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012.


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