On the global stage of maritime governance, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal took India's decarbonisation and digitalisation ambitions directly to world decision-makers — speaking at the Government: High-Level Roundtable during the IMO 2026 World Maritime Day Parallel Event in Busan, South Korea, on Monday, October 26, 2026.

Sonowal anchored India's positioning firmly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision, telling delegates that India is 'playing a key role in driving global transition toward sustainable and smart shipping.' The message was pointed and numerical: India aims to ensure that one in every five seafarers globally is Indian — a target that doubles as both a workforce ambition and a claim on international rule-setting influence.

Skilling India's seafarers for a low-carbon fleet

At the heart of Sonowal's address was a workforce argument. India is actively upskilling its maritime workforce in alternative green fuels — think ammonia, methanol, and hydrogen — and advanced digital navigation technologies. With Indian seafarers already among the most widely deployed globally, re-tooling that pipeline for the next generation of low-emission vessels gives India structural leverage inside IMO deliberations.

The Directorate General of Shipping is expected to roll out dedicated green-fuel training modules to back this up. Analysts will watch whether these modules translate skilling rhetoric into certified competencies recognised under IMO's Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) framework — because that is where workforce ambition becomes regulatory currency.

India's IMO journey: from endorsement to agenda-setting

India's engagement at the International Maritime Organization — the UN's specialist agency for shipping safety and environmental standards — stretches back at least to 2018, when New Delhi endorsed the IMO's Initial GHG Strategy at the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) 72 session. That endorsement committed India to the broad arc of halving shipping emissions by 2050 from 2008 levels — a target since revised upward to net-zero 'by or around' 2050.

The domestic scaffolding is Maritime India Vision 2030, the national roadmap launched in 2021 covering port modernisation, green shipping corridors, and digital infrastructure. Sonowal's Busan appearance signals that India now wants to move from signatory to shaper — leveraging its technology capabilities and sheer workforce scale to build 'practical international cooperation,' as he put it, rather than merely comply with standards written by others.

Why Busan, and why now

Busan is not an incidental venue. South Korea is one of the world's three dominant shipbuilding nations, alongside China and Japan, and Busan is its shipbuilding heartland. Holding this parallel event in Busan places maritime decarbonisation squarely inside the industry's own backyard — where new-fuel propulsion systems, LNG bunkering infrastructure, and digital port ecosystems are not future concepts but current commercial realities.

For India, showing up at ministerial level in Busan signals seriousness to shipowners, classification societies, and fuel suppliers who will ultimately decide which nations earn contracts and partnerships in the green-shipping transition. The forum's high-level government roundtable format also gives participants direct face time with IMO leadership ahead of the next MEPC sessions, where mid-term emission-reduction measures — including a potential global carbon levy on shipping — are actively being negotiated.

India has one of the world's largest pools of trained mariners and an expanding shipbuilding order book. The question Sonowal has put on the table is whether that combination can make India indispensable — not just a supplier of crew, but an architect of the rules governing the seas.