The Government of India (GOI) has recognized in recent times the potential of giving a substantial boost to the tourism sector by promoting cruise tourism in the country. Tourism is one of the sectors that already makes a huge contribution to the gross domestic product and foreign exchange earnings. According to GOI, India has the potential in the near future to host almost 1000 cruise ship calls per year as compared to 150–160 cruise ship calls per year at present.
The Ministry has directed all Major Ports to extend the Direct Port Delivery (DPD) facility to all Accredited Client Programme (ACP) clients and to provide additional land area for parking of DPD containers. The earlier conditions for providing DPD have been waived.
