Dredging Corp targets Rs 575cr turnover

State-owned DCI to invest Rs 250cr to purchase 2 dredgers

Vizag-based Dredging Corporation of India Limited (DCI) is anticipating a turnover of around Rs 575 crore during the current year.

"During 2002-03, the company's turnover was Rs 519 crore and it has increased to Rs 550 crore (unaudited figure) for the year ended March 2004. In the current fiscal also, we are expecting a 5-10 per cent growth in turnover," Neerav Kumar Gupta, chairman and managing director of DCI, told Business Standard.

"For the last three years, our dredging capacity has not increased and we have been facing increased competition from private dredging companies which include multinational companies," Gupta said.

The state-owned DCI, at present has a dredging capacity of around 798.5 lakh cubic metres per annum, but has for the last two years ensured that it was achieving capacity utilisation rates of over 100 per cent. The company's net profit is also likely to go up by 5-10 per cent in the current fiscal, when compared to last year's net profit of Rs.161 crore.

After the introduction of the new dredging policy by the central government, DCI has had to compete with other private dredging companies to get maintenance dredging contracts from the major ports in the country.

For the last several years, DCI has been enjoying a monopoly in maintenance dredging in the country and at present its share in the country's maintenance dredging is around 87 per cent.

At present, DCI is putting more emphasis on foreign works.

"We have already rented out two of our dredgers to foreign companies and now we are looking out for direct dredging works outside the country. Negotiations have been started with a couple of foreign companies and we are confident of an order shortly," he said. Gupta was, however, reluctant to reveal the size of the order.

Keeping in mind the increased dredging opportunity in the country and abroad, DCI is adding two more dredgers to its fleet. "By 2007, we will get one cutter suction dredger and one shallow draft trailer suction dredger and we will invest around Rs 250 crore generated from internal accruals," he disclosed.

To increase efficiency levels across the company, DCI is also in the process of implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software at an investment of Rs 7 crore and has shortlisted four major IT companies to implement this project, Gupta said.