DCI plans to strengthen dredging fleet

The Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) has unveiled plans to expand and strengthen its fleet of dredgers to meet the future demands of ports in India, The Hindu reports.

At present, DCI owns 10 dredgers of different sizes and capacities. It is equipped to handle 60 million cubic metres of sand per year, while the requirement for ports that need annual dredging is close to 105 million cubic metres.

“This is likely to grow to 160 million cubic meters in the next 10 years and to meet the demand, we need to expand our fleet and enhance the capacity of the existing fleet,” said K. Rama Mohan Rao, Chairman of Visakhapatnam Port Trust, also the chairman of DCI.

He was speaking to reporters after inaugurating the annual beach nourishment program, near INS Kursura Submarine Museum, earlier this week.

“As part of the expansion, DCI is negotiating with Kochi Shipyard for building a 7,700 to 12,000-cubic meter dredger,” he said.

Also, efforts are on to enhance the capacity of 5,500-cubic meter dredgers to 7000-cubic meter dredgers. This process is called ‘jumboisation’.