The Gujarat Maritime Board has said that it will give priority to developing marine shipbuilding parks at Dahej and Bhavnagar out of the five places identified.

Gujarat aims at a share of 3 million DWT of the national target of 5 million DWT in the shipbuilding arena. Mr Pankaj Kumar vice chairman and CEO of GMB said that "Priority will be accorded to cluster based development of two marine shipbuilding parks proposed to come up at Dahej and Bhavnagar.”

He elaborated that five locations were identified along the coast of Gujarat in May 2010 to be developed as marine shipbuilding parks, of which layout plans for the parks at Dahej and Bhavnagar have been prepared.

According to the 11th Five-Year Plan, India aims to build annual tonnage of 5 million DWT.

Mazagon Dock, a government undertaking, may set up a shipyard at one of the proposed parks in Gujarat to build naval ships at an investment of INR 1,000 crore.

The locations for the five shipbuilding parks are North bank of Narmada river in Dahej region, Old Bhavnagar port area, coastline in Bhavnagar district in the Gulf of Cambay, coastline between Navlakhi to Jodiya in Jamnagar and an area near Mandvi in the Gulf of Kutch.

It is estimated that the new shipbuilding requirement up to 2015 was nearly 1,000 million DWT.

(Sourced from Exim News Service)