Ruia floats shipyard proposal at Haldia

Indian industrialist Pawan Ruia has stepped into the shipping sector with a proposal to set up a shipyard in a 2000-acre area at Jelingham in Haldia at a total cost of Rs 3,000 crore. Ruia will fund Rs 400 crore while the rest will be raised from commercial banks and financial institutions.

The land Ruia wants to acquire belongs to Kolkata Port Trust and was leased to Burn Standard company. “The land has been lying unused for years. We won?t have to evict anybody to build up the project,” Ruia said. The group will not only build the shipyard with a capacity of building 12 ships up to Panamax size and repairing 20 ships a year, it has also plans for setting up steel and power projects at the site. The project will create 16,000 direct jobs, Ruia claimed.