Dredging Corporation of India, a category-I mini ratna company under the Ministry of Shipping with headquarters in Visakhapatnam, has decided to foray into foreign markets this year.
The company had rich experience over a decade ago in taking up projects in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other places. It accounts for 80 per cent of maintenance dredging and 25 per cent of capital dredging in the domestic market.
DCI Chairman and Managing Director Rajesh Tripathi in an exclusive interview to The Hindu said as part of fleet augmentation they wanted to give an order for a hopper dredger with a capacity of 9,000 cubic metres either from internal accruals or market borrowing or part-financing in partnership with an interested party.
“We are very keen on enhancing efficiency levels, reducing time in completion of dredging and phasing out aging fleet,” he said. The company has at present three cutter suction dredgers, 12 trailing suction hopper dredger and one backwater dredger.
Navratna company Mr. Tripathi said they had set a target to become a Navratna company by 2020 by increasing their penetration in the domestic and overseas market and becoming a nodal agency for execution of integrated port infrastructure projects which included construction of berths and all marine structures.
Stating that the ministry in its MoU had set a target of Rs.950 crore for current financial year, he said their thrust would be to diversify its operations to achieve the target. During just concluded year, the company had almost reached the target of Rs.800 crore.
As part of diversification, DCI would offer project management consultancy and lay emphasis on indigenisation of import-substitute products. “To begin with, we want to encourage building five products required for dredging,” he said. Almost 80 per cent of specialised precision machinery is imported. DCI will develop the design and encourage vendors to build the products as part of ‘Make in India’ campaign.
