More companies taking the dredging route

 

With soaring dredging prospects, more and more shipping companies and port operators are taking the dredging route in India to boost their revenues. With just three Indian dredging companies existing about a decade ago the Indian Union Minister of Shipping, G. K. Vasan informed Parliament recently that there are now 14 Indian companies involved in dredging work in the seas in India (besides the five foreign operators). Yet several others are on the verge of jumping into the bandwagon while those already in the business are all on an expansion spree.

 

S. Hajara, Chairman and Managing Director of the state-owned Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) the largest shipping company in the country stated, “The government turned down our earlier proposal of forming a joint venture dredging company with Jawaharlal Nehru Port, Mumbai Port, Mazgaon Docks among others as stakeholders. Hence, we are now planning to start our own dredging operation by ourselves. The details for vessel acquisitions are being worked out.”

 

An official of the Indian National Shipowners Association informed that four of their members including Mercator Lines Ltd., Dredging Corporation of India, Jaisu Shipping Co. Pvt.Ltd and International Seaport Dredging Ltd., were into dredging. “Some of our members who have been solely in shipping so far have drawn up plans to enter the dredging arena. The four top European dredging giants have already opened Indian subsidiaries and would be flagging in their vessels under the Indian registry. These are Van Oord India Private Limited, Boscalis Dredging India Private Limited, Jan De Nul Dredging India Private Limited and Dredging International India Private Limited.”

 

Says Hemanth Meka Rao, Director, Meka Dredging Company, part of the Meka Group, “We have in less than a year achieved the distinction of being one of India's leading dredging and reclamation companies. We have taken up several challenging dredging, excavation and reclamation projects - both for capital and maintenance dredging projects thus being recognised as one of India's only company with experience in rock dredging. Some of the Indian shipping companies which have entered this field are merely chartering their dredgers and not gone into undertaking dredging work themselves because they do not want to put up with various obstacles that exist including delayed payments, rising manpower cost, severe competition from overseas operators, etc.”

 

There is little support from the government informs Capt SC Sood, Managing Director of IMS Ship Management (P) Ltd. This is particularly so when bids are invited for deepening the approach channels of either of the 12 major ports, Sethusamudram project or other important projects “It is difficult for new comers since it is a common practice to insist that bidders have at least two years experience. This means that they will first have to undertake tasks in minor ports or in the inland waterways and then qualify themselves to bid two years later.”

 

Currently, because of depth restrictions at Indian ports, big ships have to route their cargo through neighbouring ports, such as Colombo, Singapore and Dubai. As the government is keen on bringing back the vibrancy into the economy it has put in place targets to increasing the cargo handling capacity of major ports by two folds to reach 1.5 billion metric tonnes (MT) by the year 2012. This will be achieved at an investment of around USD 25 billion through public-private partnerships.