The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has given its nod to Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) to acquire six handymax bulk carriers at total investment of $ 269.40 million (Rs 1,077.60 crore). Briefing newspersons on the decision, the Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, said that the contract price of each handymax bulk carrier (with 57,000 dead weight tonnage) was $44.90 million (Rs 179.60 crore per vessel). External borrowings The Finance Minister said that SCI would be availing itself of external borrowing up to 80 per cent of the contract price of each vessel from banks/financial institutions either from the international market or the domestic market and the balance from its internal resources.
The acquisition of vessels would augment the Indian dry bulk carrier tonnage as also the share of Indian lines in the country's overseas trade.
Moreover, the employment of Indian flag vessels for the trade would result in net foreign exchange savings for the country.
Deepening channel
Meanwhile, the CCEA also gave its nod for implementation of "deepening of channel at Paradip port" at a revised estimated cost of Rs 253.359 crore.
Dredging Corporation of India would implement the project. Mr Chidambaram said that the Paradip port would bring in Rs 208.36 crore and the balance Rs 45 crore would come from the Central Government as grant-in-aid.
The Finance Minister said that the project is likely to be completed within 60 weeks.
As a result of implementation of the project, the Paradip port would be able to handle ships of 1.25 lakh DWT from the existing capacity of 65,000 DWT, thus handling large volumes of traffic.
The project would also help in the decongestion of port due to high capacity vessels.
It would also reduce sea freight for bulk cargo in general and iron ore and coal in particular.
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