COVER STORY | Marine Dockyard: A Big Yawn!

THE LIGHT OF ANDAMANS | VOL 36 | ISSUE 03 | 01 NOV 2012

COVER STORY:

Marine Dockyard: A Big Yawn!

The Marine Dockyard has very good fitting, machine and moulding shops, but remains under-utilized as majority of the 320 and odd workforce doesn't possess the mandatory IRS certification in their trade. Nothing possible has been done yet to make the staff go through the process and get the necessary certification to be competent to repair the vessels. Why should the staff take the initiative? It will only burden them with more work. But if some incentives are provided and the pay weigh made skill-oriented, the dockyard can be put to optimal use.

The same dry dock is used by Coast Guard and they get their work done on time, while most of the vessels managed by DSS or ABS do not keep any time schedule, which has affected the service at all levels.  The contractors who work for Coast Guard make the rental payment for the dry dock. And if they overshoot the schedule, they have to bear the brunt. Moreover, Coast Guard always stocks critical spares.

Although there cannot be any comparison of DSS with Coast Guard, but they could have used the basic template followed by Coast Guard. Even private vessels have no such downtime as DSS owned vessels. There is no routine maintenance of the ships due to laid-back planning process.