The Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers is all set to float a joint venture with French naval shipbuilder, DCNS and an Indian IT partner that will provide shipbuilding design services.

Mr K C Shekhar CMD of Garden Reach Shipbuilders said that "The joint venture will start a design bureau in Kolkata with a headcount of 70 to 80 people that could go up to 200 as business develops. The JV will start operations from June this year."

Mr Shekhar did not want to divulge details on the shareholding pattern of the JV but said that each partner would have less than 50% stake. The newly floated JV will not be a subsidiary of GRSE.

He said that "We are interested in forming a design joint venture as the GRSE design office is not equipped to cater to the requirements of the yard.”

Mr Shekhar said that the yard is also targeting to increase its steel fabrication throughput to 150 tonnes per month from a 90 to 95 tonnes per month now. He said that "Our steel throughput has increased substantially over the last few months. It was around 45 tonnes per month six months back.”

(Sourced from Business Standards)