DCIL sale may jeopardise interests of ports: Kambhampati Hari Babu

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Union government is considering to divest 51 per cent stake in Dredging Corporation of India (DCIL). Visakhapatnam MP Kambhampati Hari Babu has announced that the company’s  net worth is around Rs 1,500 crore with fixed assets of more than Rs 1,900 crore. “Any strategic sale to any private player will only be disastrous.

The acquiring party may be interested in taking the company out of Visakhapatnam. And this will have many political ramifications apart from putting the strategic interests of the ports in jeopardy”, he said.

To put the company back on track, the government should support it in the form of bagging new orders and releasing the outstanding dues from Sethusamudram and other ports, he added. DCIL has long-pending outsta-nding dues of Rs 167 crore from Sethusamudram alone.

The release of these dues would help the company to fund the capital acquisition on its own even without financial aid from the government.

DCIL has offered 15 per cent discount over its previous rates for carrying out the dredging works at all the major ports. Accepting this proposal will be a win-win situation for both. The ports will be financially benefited and this would also help the company to bail out of this crisis.

The miniratna company had proposed to set up a dredger training institute cum repair yard at Antarvedi with an investment of about Rs 800 crore. An agreement has also been signed at International Maritime Summit last year. Though the detailed project report has been submitted, the project is still awaiting government approval.

With a fleet of 17 dredgers of various types, DCI ranks among the top 10 dredging companies in the world. At present Government of India has 73.47 per cent stake in the company that has a paid-up capital of Rs 28 crore and has about 46,000 shareholders.