A month after the Union Cabinet approved the proposal for the sale of the entire equity of the government in the Dredging Corporation of India, an employee committed suicide throwing himself before a train. Though the incident caused severe resentment among the 500-odd employees, they continued their peaceful struggle and worked hard to prove their point that it had the potential to improve its profit margin.
The Cabinet decision for the strategic sale of the government’s 73.47% equity on November 1, 2017 was the culmination of the speculation that the DCI would go to private hands.
The decision claimed the life of N. Venkatesh, 28, a junior assistant prompting Jana Sena founder Pawan Kalyan to visit their hunger strike tent and pledge support to their demand. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who was then part of the BJP-led NDA government, had also said he would take up the issue.
The annual results for 2017-18, released recently, showed the profit going up from the previous year’s ₹7.12 crore to ₹16.64 crore. The turnover rose from ₹598.97 crore to ₹612.12 crore.
The company had invested ₹167 crore in the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project to facilitate navigation in the shallow straits to Sri Lanka in 2006. As the project hit a roadblock, a parliamentary committee had recommended return of ₹302 crore in 2009.
“So far the amount has not been given back to the DCI, a profit-making category-I mini ratna public sector unit since its inception in 1976,” CITU all-India general secretary and former MP Tapan Sen told The Hindu .
The DCI carried dredging for Kolkata/Haldia, Visakhapatnam, Cochin, Paradeep, Gangavaram, Mumbai and Mongla (Bangladesh), Cochin Shipyard, Andaman Nicobar, Gujarat Maritime Board and Indian Navy-Kochi.
Five-year contract
A cursory look at the company’s performance since 2017 shows that it had been awarded a five-year contract by the Kolkata Port Trust for maintenance dredging in the Hooghly estuary for ₹1,119 crore. The Cochin Port Trust awarded a project for maintenance of channels and basins for 2018-19 for ₹88.51 crore.
The Cochin Shipyard gave a five-year project for maintenance dredging in 2015-16 for ₹110 crore and the Paradip Port awarded capital dredging during 2017-18 for one year for ₹67.15 crore.
Capital dredging project
The DCI bagged during the year, capital dredging project from the Mongla Port Authority for 15 months in Bangladesh for ₹103 crore through global bidding. Capital dredging in the Pussur river from the Mongla Port to the Rampal Power Plant from January, 2018 would also be carried out by it. Maintenance dredging for the Mumbai Port for three years commencing 2017-18 would fetch it ₹84 crore.
The DCI is also expecting the capital dredging project from the Cochin Port from September for ₹42.26 crore.
