The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has formed a committee to examine the feasibility of making containers at Bhavnagar in Gujarat.
The Centre wants to develop it into a manufacturing hub for steel boxes that have become a global standard for shipping a variety of goods across ships, rail and road.
As the first step in this direction, freight forwarder Pushpak Logistics has rolled out a pilot project by placing orders for a few containers with manufacturers in Bhavnagar.
Indian coastal shipping adds about 10,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of new containers annually, while India’s largest container rail operator, the Container Corporation of India, may require 2,000-2,500 TEUs of new containers every year.