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The Union Shipping Ministry is learnt to have asked the Kandla port to look for an alternative location on its campus for the Cochin Shipyard (CSL) to set up a shipbuilding and repair facility, as the area it had offered earlier for the purpose was found to be unviable for such a project.
The ministry’s move comes in the wake of a techno-economic feasibility study held at the behest of the Cochin Shipyard giving a thumbs down to the proposal. “The 320 acres of land offered at Tuna in Kandla for an off-campus shipbuilding, repair facility by the Cochin Shipyard falls in the inter-tidal region. The study has categorically said that it’s financially infeasible to have it there,” said sources.
It was at the instance of the Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari that the yard engaged a consultant last year to study the viability of the proposal. “The specified area, however, witnesses heavy tidal variations,” an officer pointed out. After the shipyard wrote to the ministry citing the glitches thrown up by the study, the ministry has now asked the port to see if it can come up with any other area for such a facility, he added.
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