Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd (GRSE) has signed a concessional agreement with Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port Trust, formerly Kolkata Port Trust, to use the latter’s facilities for ship repair and refitting.

According to a stock market filing, three dry docks in the Kidderpore area along with associated facilities and infrastructure will be taken over for 15 years to carry out repair and refits for naval and coast-guard ships, port trust vessels and commercial ships. The concessional agreement will be extendable for another 15 years, post a review.

Equal sharing of profits

The port will be responsible for enabling and maintaining the docks and infrastructure, while GRSE will be in charge of customer acquisition and servicing. Profits generated will be ‘equally shared’ between the two.

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GRSE has already bagged orders from the Mauritius Coast Guard for refit of one of its ships and other repair work for the Indian Coast Guard vessels.

The company reported a revenue of ₹304 crore and a net profit of ₹21 crore for the April to June period.

Dredging at port

According to Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, the Centre has allotted ₹1,000 crore for dredging at the Kolkata port over the next seven years.

Stakeholders have often complained of lower draft at the Kolkata and Haldia ports impacting operations.

Connecting port to N-E

Plans are afoot to connect the north-eastern part of the country with south-east Asia, he added.

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“The plan is to connect the north-east part of the country with south-east Asia via Kolkata port. We will leverage the National Waterways 2 or the Brahmaputra river system through Indo-Bangladesh Protocol,” the Union Minister told reporters here in the city. Sonowal is on a two-day visit to the city.

According to him, there are also plans to connect the north-east via transit through Bangladesh using the Chattogram port. The trial movement through Chattogram port has already been done and regular movement to Tripura “will start soon”.