Port Blair, Aug 17: The Government of India/ Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers welfare, on the request of A&N Administration, have included Port Meadows and Nancowry as Plant Quarantine Ports for import of stone aggregates under the Plant Quarantine Regulations, vide a Memorandum dated 13th Aug, 2020. As per existing arrangements only Port Blair was the notified port for the purpose of Plant Quarantine Regulations and all the cargo ships carrying stones, sand and aggregate had to mandatorily touch Port Blair for clearances, which was not only cumbersome/ time consuming but also economically disadvantageous. The notification would ease the procedures for import of stone aggregates for infrastructure projects especially in the Nicobar Islands and would lead to considerable savings in the transportation costs and time.

The endeavour of the A&N Administration is to include more and more ports of the A&N Islands for direct clearances of Customs, Plant Quarantine and other formalities, so that more products could be directly imported through ships to all the major Islands, without having to first call at Port Blair for these formalities. This would help in speedy progress of all infrastructure projects especially in the far flung Islands.