CHENNAI: The Indian Navy will have a floating dock at Andaman and Nicobar Islands by next year so that it can dock naval ships and submarines up to 8,000 tonnes displacement, according to a top official of L&T Shipbuilding.
Chief executive and managing director of Larsen and Toubro, vice-Admiral (retd) B Kannan told Express that the Rs 468 crore floating dock will significantly augment the support infrastructure of the Navy for docking of warships and submarines for repair and refit as the island does not have a dry dock.
Kannan, who was speaking on the sidelines of Indo-US partnership conclave organised by Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, here on Tuesday, said that the Katpuli shipyard already has orders worth Rs 2,000 crore. He said that the shipyard will also be supplying interceptor boats to Coast Guard.
“We have already supplied 20 interceptor boats and the remaining 30 will be supplied to Coast Guard soon,” he said. He also said that the shipyard is building offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) for Coast Guard besides designing an elevator for a naval ship, which could lift the helicopter from the hangar and bring it to the dock. However, he denied the technology is meant for an indigenously built aircraft carrier.
Earlier, the State government wooed investors to invest in Chennai Aerospace Park, which will be spread across an area of 260 acres (expandable to 700 acres in Phase II) at Sriperumbudur near Chennai. The State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu has already acquired the required land for the project.
“The park will have common facilities like an Advanced Computing & Engineering Design Centre, Common Testing & Technology Centre, Avionics Complex, Composites Development Centre and Warehousing Complex. Till now we have offered land to 14 companies,” said industries secretary C V Sankar.
Industries minister M C Sampath highlighted the achievement of industries in the State. A research paper was also released by Madras Consultancy Group during the occasion. The report stated that Tamil Nadu continues to remain one of the prime contributors to India’s trade and accounted for 8.6pc of country’s export in 2013-14 with the value of export from the State estimated at $26.9 billion.
TN aims to garner 30 pc of Indian aerospace business by 2020 for which several projects have been lined up.