National ship owners’ body throws open its portals to nearly all ship owners
Since its establishment in 1929 the Indian National Shipowners’ Association (INSA) the only trade body of ship owners in the country has maintained a closed membership policy. Entry to this body so far has been restricted only to elite shipping companies as only they could qualify the high standard required. As such among the requirements ship owners had to possess individual tonnage of more than 5000 tons and should have been operating for more than five years. But now INSA is all set to discard this monopolistic image preferring to present itself as the real representative body of vessel owners.
According to sources in shipping circles this has come about following signals from the government that if INSA wants to continue to enjoy recognition as a national body of ship owners it needs to acquire an all compassing character by throwing open its portals to accommodate even the small and medium sized shipping companies so that it can be recognised as a truly representative organisation of shipping companies.
Though INSA claims that its 36 members command 90 percent of the India’ tonnage there are more than 200 other ship owners having a sizeable number of vessels yet do not have any proper representation. Besides, there are several ship owners who play a significant role on the offshore sector etc., but have been kept out of INSA’s fold. Recently, applications for membership from prominent ship owners including American Eagle Tankers (which had formed an Indian company to flag in their vessels) have been kept in abeyance until changes are incorporated to accommodate them.
In the early eighties efforts were made by some ship owners who had been denied membership to form a parallel association. But their efforts were frustrated. Again two years back a similar effort was made but did not yield any results.
S. S. Kulkarni, Secretary General of INSA stated, “Changes have been made to our constitution and the sanction of the Company Law Board obtained. Accordingly once this gets approved at the EGM of INSA which has been convened for 30th April, 2010 membership would be accorded to even those applicants who have tonnage of merely 150 net tons. The requirement of being owner and operator for at least five years has also been deleted to make it easier for becoming members.”
INSA has time and again been drawing the government’s attention to the fact that the shipping industry in India does not have a level playing field because the levels of taxation including the indirect taxes are as high as 8% to 10% whereas shipping companies in most other countries enjoy only zero to 0.5% taxes. As a result Indian shipping companies have been unable to face global competition on their own turf. With this change of heart will the government come round to giving heed to the appeals of the Indian ship owners?