Shipping Ministry for selling off shipyards

KOCHI: The Union Shipping Ministry is in favour of disinvestment of shipyards to make them more competitive and is on the look out for tie-ups with more experienced yards to achieve goals in ship building, Shipping Minister Ved Prakash Goyal said on Tuesday.
"We are trying to find more experienced shipyards and seal tie-ups with them in the areas of technical expertise, planning, and manufacturing," the minister told a press conference here soon after dedicating ''Maharshi Parasuram'', the 93,000 DWT double hull tanker of the Shipping Corporation of India here this evening.
The Ministry was taking SCI''s help for the tie-ups and "very soon there would be new faces to help us in achieving the goals," he said.
Goyal said he was in "favour of disinvestment in every venture which will help the country." Only then the country would be able to compete with other nations.
Asked if there was any time frame for disinvestment of shipyards, he replied in the negative saying it was an ongoing process.
He said all efforts were being made to pull the Hoogly dockyard and the Hindustan Shipyard out of losses. "The situation has gone above political wranglings.We cannot stay behind," he said pointing to China, which had raced ahead of India.
When pointed out that CSL had received a letter of intent from the Indian Navy for the construction of an Air Defence ship at the yard and that the disinvestment process could pose a security risk, the minister said "Disinvestment process will not clash with security solutions."