India’s Pandu ship repair facility to open in early 2025
India’s northeast region is to get its first ship repair yard in early 2025 in the shape of Pandu ship repair (Source: IWAI)
Small coastal vessels and inland waterways craft in Northeast India will soon have a dedicated ship repair and maintenance facility to use, when the new Pandu ship repair facility opens for business in early 2025. The new repair yard is being built on a 3.67-acre site on land provided by the Government of Assam.
The new yard is being built in Guwahati and is expected to be a major contributor to the economic resurgence of the region. Pandu ship repair’s design and implementation is being undertaken jointly by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) and state-owned Cochin Shipyard Ltd and ITT, Madras.
Work started on the construction of the new yard, which will repair vessels on slipways, in May 2022, with the new facility being in the area where work has started on National Waterway 2 – the Brahmaputra – as well as National Waterway 6 – the Barak – which will help in increasing cargo traffic, ferry traffic and tourist traffic in the region.
The new yard will be located on the south bank of the Brahmaputra river on National Waterway 2 and will be the first of its kind in the region. Currently, local vessels requiring drydocking have to be the long journey to Kolkata, via Bangladesh, a 2,500km journey that often takes 35-40 days each way.
