Dredging Corp to invest Rs 900 cr

Announces 150% payout

State-owned Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), the premier dredging company in the country, will be investing about Rs 900 crore in the next three years to acquire new dredgers.

Besides, DCI has drawn up plans for chartering 10-12 dredgers from international companies to meet the dredging needs in the country.

"The Union government has recently awarded DCI the entire Rs 2,000 crore worth of dredging works of the Sethusamudram ship canal project. So, we are planning to charter dredgers from other companies to execute the massive project," Neerav Kumar Gupta, chairman and managing director, DCI, told mediapersons here.

DCI has completed almost half of the dredging work of the E3-E4 stretch in the Palk Strait. Since bagging the project a year ago, the company has finished 6.09 million cubic metres of dredging of the total 13.5 million cubic metres. It would complete the remaining work within the scheduled period (by June 2007).

He said the company would complete about 70 million cubic metres of Sethusamudram dredging work within three years.

In order to execute the projects on hand and augment its capacities to the extent possible, DCI proposes to charter dredgers through Trans Chart. DCI has already chartered a 4,700 cubic metre hopper capacity trailer suction dredger for the Sethusamudram dredging operations and has also placed provisional orders for chartering two dredgers of 5,000 cubic metres hopper capacity. It would charter 10 more dredgers through Trans Chart, Gupta said.

The company has already called tenders for acquiring three new dredgers at an investment of more than Rs 900 crore. "We are expecting the public investment board approval for the proposal within 6-7 months," Gupta said.

Currently, DCI has 12 dredgers. Orders had been placed with Mazagaon Dock, Mumbai, in October 2005 for procurement of a number of cutter suction dredgers of 2,000 cubic metres solids per hour capacity.

DCI has announced 150 per cent dividend (including interim dividend of 60 per cent paid in February 2006) on its paid-up equity involving an amount of Rs 47.89 crore for 2005-06 as against 120 per cent (Rs 38.21 crore) for the previous year.

"In spite of slight dip in turnover because of tonnage tax benefit, we witnessed a growth of about 32.6 per cent in net margins in 2005-06," Neerav Kumar Gupta, CMD, DCI, said. Earnings per share for 2005-06 was Rs 63.02 compared with Rs 40.46 for the previous year.

Its turnover stood at Rs 542.89 crore in 2005-06 as against Rs 551.62 crore in the preceding year due to Rs 50 crore discount given to Kolkata port dredging works. The discount will be valid till March 2007.

"However, our net margin increased to Rs 176.46 crore from Rs 113.29 crore in 2004-05. In 2004-05, we paid Rs 73 crore as tonnage tax, but in 2005-06 we paid only Rs 17.5 crore on this account," he said.