India’s Cochin Shipyard has begun construction work on four passenger/general cargoships for the Andaman & Nicobar Islands administration.
To upgrade what is becoming an increasingly ancient fleet of hybrid passenger/general cargoships, the Andaman and Nicobar administration has ordered two 14,000-gross-ton (gt) vessels and a pair of 6,700-gt units.
Designed by Danish naval architects Knud E Hansen and India’s Smart Engineering & Design Solutions, the larger ships will have a capacity to carry 1,200 passengers and 1,000 tonnes of general cargo. The smaller pair will carry 500 passengers and 150 tons of general cargo. All are slated for delivery in 2019 and 2020.
The Andaman & Nicobar Islands administration owns a large fleet of passenger/general cargoships that are used on runs between the Indian east coast and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, as well as on inter-island services.
Technical and commercial management of the vessels is handled by Shipping Corp of India (SCI).
Many of these ships are becoming old and unreliable, and it is thought that the two new large vessels will be used to replace the 9,500-gt passenger/general cargoship Akbar (built 1971) and the SCI-owned 9,700-gt passenger/general cargoship Harsha Vardhana (built 1974) on long-haul routes to mainland India.
Both have been slated for retirement for some time, although a lack of replacement tonnage has kept the Harsha Vardhana in service, while the Akbar has been laid up in Chennai recently awaiting a decision on whether it should be refitted for further service or replaced by a new ship.
