The Cochin Shipyard on Friday entered into a tripartite memorandum of understanding with the Lakshadweep administration and the Lakshadweep Development Corporation Limited (LDCL) for repairing LDCL-owned vessels that act as the lifeline linking the archipelago with the mainland.
The contract for turnkey repairs of Lakshadweep’s fleet of 25 vessels is expected to fetch Cochin Shipyard anywhere between Rs.50 crore and Rs.60 crore annually.
The MoU was signed in New Delhi between Lakshadweep development commissioner Vasantha Kumar; LDCL managing director V.C. Pandey and CSL technical director P. Vinayakumar in the presence of Union Shipping Minister G.K. Vasan; Hamdullah Sayeed, MP; and senior officials.
The LDCL’s fleet comprises 17 passenger vessels, four cargo ships, two tugs and a tanker besides an LPG cylinder carrier, whose maintenance and dry-docking have been by and large carried out by Cochin Shipyard since 1983.
The formal agreement, the shipyard said in a media release, was aimed at ensuring uninterrupted availability of these ships for the service of the islanders. It mandates LDCL to submit a tentative schedule for repairs of its vessels every November to CSL, indicating their approximate schedule and repair duration in the ensuing year.
The shipyard, on its part, would allocate tentative repair slots for these vessels to suit the survey requirements and the voyage schedules as indicated by LDCL. Besides routine dry-docking and repair, the shipyard would now attend to emergency and afloat repairs of the vessels to meet statutory and classification requirements.
