HDPEL

HDPEL plans JV to avoid disinvestment

Hooghly Dock and Port Engineers Ltd (HDPEL) proposes to find a joint venture (JV) partner to avoid disinvestment, Mr Manish Jain, HDPEL Chairman, said.

The effort to float a JV company was being taken after the Ministry of Shipping had served an ultimatum to the company to find a partner by next year or face disinvestment.

The request for qualification (RFQ) for the JV would attract both global and domestic companies once it was floated, Mr Jain said.

This is especially important in the context of Indo-Bangladesh maritime traffic projected to increase momentously in the coming years.

While HDPEL would become a shell company, the JV would take over the ship construction, repair and related activities and operate on 30 acres of leased land and other assets of the sick PSU, it is learnt.

HDPEL has already completed an internal survey about the strengths and potential of the planned JV where the government would have a 24 per cent stake, implying increased control for the private entity.

It may be recalled that the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, had signed an agreement with Bangladesh in June this year on coastal shipping for two-way trade and renewed the 1972 Protocol on Inland Waterways Transit and Trade which uses the two countries’ waterways for commercial purposes.