According to officials, the policy would outline the standards for green port categorization, as well as incentives for transitioning to less polluting fuels and improving efficiency to reduce overall emissions.

“The policy will define how the Green Ports model will be woven into with the Public Private partnership (PPP) models already deployed in ports,” a senior government official said.

It will also include provisions for reducing emissions and incentives to do so.

“It will provide for integration with the Green Hydrogen mission with a focus on how to use the clean fuel in the port and shipping industry,” the official said.

The policy would be guided by the Panchamrit (five nectar elements) as defined by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26).

The Prime Minister has set a national aim of increasing non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030 under the Panchamrit. As part of the strategy, India would reduce overall estimated carbon emissions by one billion tonnes between 2021 and 2030, with the goal of being a Net Zero carbon emitter by 2070.

“The Indian ports will also have to calculate the annual GreenHouse Gas (GHG) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission. Once the quantity of emissions has been established as the baseline, the domestic ports will then begin their efforts to offset it in a defined time period,” the official said.

Indian ports have already proposed a 30% reduction in carbon emissions per ton of cargo handled by 2030.

India will be the first country to perform a Green Shipping pilot project under the IMO Green Voyage 2050 project.

Under the Paris Agreement, India's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) for the period 2021-2030 include aims to lower the carbon intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35% by 2030 from 2005 levels.