The Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL) is pinning hopes on financial restructuring.

“We have sent the proposal for financial restructuring to the Centre and it is under the government’s consideration,” LV Sarat Babu, Chairman and Managing Director, has said.

Accumulated loss The shipyard’s performance has been quite satisfactory in recent times, but it is burdened with accumulated losses and is, therefore, finding itself in a spot. He said the negative worth of the company had been reduced through sustained efforts. “Once the restructuring package is sanctioned, our negative net worth will go,” he said. Sustained efforts by the HSL management and workforce led to achieving an operational profit of ₹38 crore in the fiscal 2017 after a gap of 35 years, compared to ₹19 crore during the previous year. Sarat Babu said that during 2016-17 HSL achieved an income of ₹650.08 crore and a value of production of ₹629.04 crore. The value of production had been the highest since inception of the company 76 years ago. The profit after tax was ₹53.77 crore. This was a major achievement after several challenging years.

The present order book value of the shipyard is ₹320 crore due to which the company is functioning at 48 per cent of its installed capacity.

He said the management was trying to persuade the Ministry of Defence to nominate HSL for construction of three cadet training ships, nine 25-tonne bollard pull tugs for the Navy and eight inshore patrol vessels for Indian Coast Guard.

The HSL has also urged the MoD to assign major refit and life certification (MRLC) of third EKM submarine keeping in view its proven record in retrofitting of submarines.

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