The Hindu Business Line : SCI may face delay in block acquisition

SHIPPING Corporation of India's (SCI) initiative to seek a block approval from the Government for acquiring 10 ships at a cost of Rs 2,340 crore has run into rough weather.

The company may face delay in getting the Government's nod for the block approval proposal in the wake of its inability to fix the price of the vessels.

"The Government is examining various options to clear the block approval proposal of SCI.

However, the proposal is facing a technical delay due to inability in fixing the prices of vessels," said Mr D.T. Joseph, Secretary, Ministry of Shipping.

Speaking to newspersons on the sidelines of a seminar on `Transportation of hazardous material', he said that as the vessels were not ready for acquisition, the company has not been able to quote a price for the block approval.

"The vessel prices quoted may differ substantially at the time of acquisition. We are trying to work out some limits for these price variation," he added. SCI had proposed acquisition of 10 vessels, including four Aframax tankers and two cellular container vessels, under a block approval scheme.

The cardinal objective of the company was to save time by going for block approval, instead of having to get Government approval for every vessel.

To a question on Jawaharlal Nehru Port's (JNPT) Rs 700-crore channel deepening project, Mr Joseph said that the Ministry had sought from the Finance Ministry a relaxation in the repayment of the interest that the port had to pay to the Government.

JNPT has to repay interest of Rs 727 crore on the loans it had taken from the Government earlier.

On the draft maritime policy, he said that the Shipping Ministry had identified 29 areas for development from the policy draft, including rail-road connectivity and Customs-related initiative.

"Instead of coming out with a comprehensive maritime policy, we will be prioritising key areas to be developed," he said.

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