Hindi → English transcript

There’s this oil tanker behind me.

How much oil do you think fits in this oil tanker? Oil worth 15 billion rupees,

in a single one. Do you know what the problem is?

This Strait of Hormuz is actually around forty to fifty kilometers wide.

It’s not like Iran has completely filled it up and laid mines all around it.

So oil tankers can pass through here like this.

The risk is that if even one of these oil tankers explodes, man,

that’s 15 billion gone.

And there is an even bigger tanker than this,

it carries oil worth 30 billion rupees.

At a single time they sail with 30 billion rupees worth of oil.

The problem is that all maritime trade necessarily needs insurance.

If there is no insurance, that ship simply cannot sail.

Meaning it cannot legally sail,

and basically no one is willing to take the risk of sending it.

It’s not like Iran has blocked the entire fifty kilometers and is

just sitting there. It just has to create enough risk that no one is willing to

provide insurance for it.

Among the total top ten economies,

only India does not have its own insurance company. Indian ships have

been facing problems for the last two months because we were not getting insurance.

That is why the Government of India itself

has created a 1.5 billion dollar Bharat Maritime Insurance Pool so that it

can shield Indian ships in war risk zones. The point is that

as geopolitical risks keep increasing, this whole supply chain,

wherever these ships and vessels pass through, is becoming risky.

The riskier they get,

the more these international insurance companies refuse to give us insurance.

The more the risk of war increases,

the more the premiums of these foreign insurance companies keep rising,

and in a way they are becoming unaffordable.

Until now, India used to get its ships insured by foreign Protection and Indemnity,

meaning insurance companies.

But now they are entering into even greater danger.

India was not the only one that did not have this foreign insurance backup.

Now the Indian government has created a pool of 1.5 billion dollars,

which means 13,000 crore rupees.

so that if any Indian insurance companies want to insure ships,

then the government is backing them,“ We will provide a shield,

we are supporting you with full support.” Sovereign guarantee.

Meaning there is comprehensive

risk reduction for any Indian ship that is passing through a war zone,

that is under any small or big risk. What happens here is that, for example,

when Indian insurance companies insure a ship for 500 crore… Now, because we have

this Bharat Maritime Shield Insurance Pool, she can insure it for 1500 crore.

This is what the whole game is. Meaning, the biggest obstacle

that had been coming up in our trade for the past two or three months,

this significant policy will actually ease that.

Meaning, the Bharat Maritime Insurance Pool,

a 13,000 crore rupee pool of the government, which will provide insurance to

our international shipping.

It will give a sovereign guarantee,

so insurance companies can basically insure them,

even if they are passing through a war zone. Because of this,

our trade will become a little easier.

Which, given all the geopolitical changes happening

these days and the volatility that keeps increasing in trade, the reduction in oil,

the reduction in LPG, it will help with that for many years to come. This was a very

necessary policy to implement.