Inadequate efforts to add dredging capacity and increasing exodus of senior officials have been affecting the performance of the State-owned Dredging Corporation of India.

This, in turn, is taking a toll on Indian ports, which are not able to maintain the required draft that is needed to accommodate larger cargo-carrying vessels.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee has pointed out in its latest report that DCI has not been able to procure any new dredging machinery in the last nine years, prompting Indian ports give their dredging contracts to private players. The existing fleet is also old, needing replacement.

As against the targets of 672 million cubic metres (MCMs) in capital dredging and 430 MCMs in maintenance dredging during the XI Plan, only 278 MCMs and 291 MCMs, or 41.3 per cent and 67.8 per cent, were respectively achieved.

It is projected that Indian ports will need an additional dredging requirement of 625 MCMs during the 12 {+t}{+h} Plan.

Of the 10 trailer suction dredgers that DCI owns, seven are over 20 years and the oldest is 37 years.

In the three cutter suction dredgers, two are 35 and 34 years old. Dredgers over 20 years old can work for hardly 230 to 250 days a year.

Last year, the company placed orders for three trailer suction dredgers from IHC Dredgers of Netherlands at a cost of about Rs 1,570 crore, which are scheduled for delivery in December 2012, June 2013 and January 2014.

Moreover, chartering of dredgers by DCI has not proved to be cost effective.

With foreign players increasingly eating into DCI's market, the company is facing the problem of flight of personnel to private companies.

Currently, DCI has over 70 vacancies, including GM in Operations, Finance, Human Resources and Marketing, 10 surveyors and 22 assistants.

>amitmitra@thehindu.co.in

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