The Hindu Business Line : Central Inland Water to initiate Rajabagan Dockyard selling

THE Central Inland Water Transport Corporation (CIWTC), the river transport and shipbuilding/repairing company under the Ministry of Shipping, is to sound Kolkata Port Trust, Coast Guard, India Navy, other public sector shipbuilding and repairing firms such as Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers and Hooghly Dock as also private shipbuilders/repairers in its bid to sell its own shipbuilding/repairing division, Rajabagan Dockyard (RBD), located in the city. This follows the Shipping Ministry's decision to enforce the Cabinet decision taken nearly three years ago.

In June 2001, the Union Cabinet approved a Rs 140-crore package for the revival of the ailing CIWTC. The package had two components — selling off of RBD, together with its workforce, as also of some of the real estates and properties (mostly located in Assam) by December 2002 to yield a total of Rs 63 crore and revival of the river services for which the Ministry would provide the balance Rs 77 crore.

RBD must be closed down in case there were no takers for it. However, the RBD was neither sold nor closed down and a large portion of the amount promised by the Government for revamping the river services was not actually received because of "adjustments of various dues".

RBD was neither sold nor closed down because the CIWTC management tried to revive its operation, with some success though. The workforce was reduced from around 800 to less than 500.

Also, repairing work of several vessels including a coastal carrier belonging to a private river transport company, Jogi Shipping, was taken up in right earnest. As a result, the operating loss dropped to around Rs 4 crore from the earlier Rs 8 crore and the value of production jumped to more than Rs 8 crore from around Rs 3.5 crore.

If this trend persisted, the management hoped, the sale/closure of RBD could be eventually averted. However, that is not to happen. The Ministry recently informed CIWTC to look for buyers for RBD; alternatively, it must be closed down. The value of RBD, which is spread over 33 acres of land and complete with shipbuilding and repairing facilities, is now estimated at more than Rs 60 crore.

Conceding that the earlier Rs 140-crore revival scheme was not properly structured (for example, the targeted value of production was set at an unrealistic level assuming a workforce of 1,400, the PF liabilities not taken into account etc), the CIWTC management furnished a fresh revival package of Rs 220 crore to the Ministry in February this year.

The package presupposes pruning of the workforce by 1,200 to 200 through voluntary retirement scheme, modernisation of RBD, modernization of the fleet to revamp the river services (the fleet comprises nearly 100 vessels of various types, of which about 58, which are in running condition, are mainly deployed to operate cargo services by the river route to Bangladesh and Assam through Bangladesh).

Apparently, the Government is in no mood to consider a fresh revival package.