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Santanu Sanyal

KOLKATA, July 29

JAISHU Shipping Company Pvt. Ltd, a private dredging firm, has joined hands with Miller, the US dredging firm, and floated a joint venture company, namely, Miller Dredging Company, registered in the UK.

The $50-million equity of Miller Dredging Company is being subscribed by the US firm to the extent of 51 per cent and the Indian partner will hold the balance 49 per cent.

The joint venture company is to participate in overseas projects, according to Mr Suresh Kewalramani, CMD of Jaishu Shipping. A beginning had already been with the joint venture company having secured a $40-million contract in Bahrain, he said.

The job, to be completed in two years beginning November, would involve reclamation of two million cubic metres of mostly rock from under the sea. This was part of a much large dredging work to be undertaken to implement the scheme, to have a number of small islands near the present Hawar Island, which was at one time an apple of discord between Qatar and Bahrain, with Bahrain ultimately having succeeded in gaining control over it, he said.

Jaishu Shipping, as the CMD indicated, had earlier tried to work as the sub-contractor to a Chinese firm that secured a huge dredging order for the Palm Island project being planned off Dubai.

However, for some reasons, the part of the project for which the Chinese firm was to participate did not make much headway. He was, however, still hopeful of participating in the project at a later day.

Meanwhile, Jaishu has secured the maintenance-dredging contract for Ennore port. The Rs 4-crore job involves removal of about 4,00,000 cubic metres of silt within 45 days beginning October. Dredging Corporation of India and Van Oord, a foreign dredging firm, had also bid for the work.

The other jobs that the company had in hand included, according to Mr Kewalramani, dredging at three ports, namely Tuticorin, Mundra and Sikka. At Tuticorin, the job, worth Rs 44 crore, involved removal of 4,00,000 cubic metres of silt including 3,00,000 cubic metres of rock, within seven months from July 2002. It was part of a much bigger job, which a foreign dredging firm had taken up but did not complete for whatever reasons.

At Mundra also, Jaishu is being required to complete a dredging work, which yet another foreign firm took up but left it halfway through. The Indian firm will now undertake about one million cubic metres of capital dredging at an estimated cost of Rs 20 crore. The job is to be completed by August.

At Sikka, Jaishu is doing a small job for Reliance — removal of three lakh cubic metres in front of a berth designed to handle support service vessels used in offshore oil exploration. The value of the job, to be completed in one month, is about Rs 8 crore.

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