Union Government granted Infrastructure Status to Shipyard Industry

The Union Government on 20 January 2016 granted Infrastructure Status to the Shipyard Industry in a bid to ease its financial stress.

With the granting of the infrastructure status, the shipyards will be able to avail flexible long-term funding at lower costs.

Benefits of the status
• With this inclusion, the financial stress on the shipyard industry will be eased substantially.
• The shipyards will be able to avail flexible structuring of long-term project loans, long-term funding from infrastructure funds at lower rates of interest.
• It will also be able to avail longer tenure equivalent to the economic life of their assets, relaxed ECB norms, issuance of infrastructure bonds as well as benefits under Income Tax Act, 1961.

About shipbuilding industry
The shipbuilding industry is a strategically important industry due to its role in energy security, national defence and for developing heavy engineering industry.

Currently, the Indian shipyards employ about 30000 people, the number will go up substantially once this sector is revitalized.

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