Garden Reach to set up design centre

Kolkata: Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) in joint venture with French ship manufacturer, DCNS, to set up a shipbuilding design centre in the city.

The design centre, which is expected to commence operations in Kolkata from June this year, would provide expertise in the field of ship designing solutions and engineering services to any ship builder in the country on a contract basis, the Chairman and Managing Director of GRSE, Rear Admiral K.C. Shekhar, told presspersons on the sidelines of an interactive session organised by the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce here.

The Design Bureau would be set up in a public-private partnership to provide end-to-end solutions starting from basic concept designs to detailed designing of ships, Mr Shekhar said. The centre is expected to provide a solution to the difficulty of shipbuilders in catering to designing requirements of a large number of contracts single-handedly, he pointed out.

The unit would also provide designs and drawings online to its clients.

The board approval is expected within the next 2-3 months after which the final agreement would be signed between the three stakeholders.

Each company would hold unequal shares of less than 50 per cent in the entity, he said. While the foreign partner would provide designing expertise, the domestic IT firm would supply hardware, manpower and other resource backup.

GRSE has also identified an office space in order to open the centre, Mr Shekhar said.

We are in favour of setting up the unit in Kolkata with a capital base of Rs 10 crore, he said.

Nearly 70-80 people would be recruited at the centre initially, and may go up to 200 subsequently.

GRSE currently has an order book of Rs 7,500 crore and an additional Rs 700 crore is expected in 2009-10, Mr Shekhar said.

Nearly Rs 250 crore of the order will come from the Indian Navy while the rest will be from other domestic and foreign companies, he added.