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Three major ports — Paradip Port, Visakhapatnam Port and New Mangalore Port — will acquire the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari announced on Friday after a review of the port sector.
BusinessLine had first reported that the Ministry of Shipping had sounded out cash-rich port trusts under its control to acquire a controlling stake in the country’s biggest dredger. This will ensure that DCI will stay in government hands and help ward off a possible backlash in the run-up to the 2019 general elections, sources had said on Wednesday.
“We are ready to offer business on a government-to-government basis to DCI for the inland waterways space,” said Gadkari, adding that DCI would undergo a modernisation of its mechanisation.
In 2017, the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs had approved the strategic disinvestment in DCI, along with transfer of management control . The government holds 73.47 per cent of the paid-up equity in the dredger.
Gadkari also said that profits of major ports would be used to make provisions for future pension liabilities and develop a land bank facility.
He added that the draft at Kandla Port would be increased to 18 m and that a mobile handset manufacturer would set up a plant in the JN Port SEZ. “This will create 1.2 lakh jobs,” he claimed.
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