L&T's shipyard to become operational by Jan

The shipyard being set up byengineering major Larsen & Toubro at Kattupalli near Chennai would becomeoperational by January next year, a top company official said on Monday.

The shipyard would enable Indiato compete globally with Japanand Koreain building large-sized warships, car carriers and submarines, L&T BoardMember and President (Heavy Engineering) M V Kotwal said.

The Shipyard is being set up by the company in associationwith the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation. Kotwal said the company had invested Rs 4,000 crore for thefirst phase of the yard spread across 1,250 acres.

"It is going to be a monster of facilities.. It canhandle 18,000 tonne ships and right now, the (work on) ship-lift is nearingcompletion... it will be operational by January 2012...", he said.

Stating the yard was "indigenously designed" byL&T, Kotwal later told reporters that the first ship from the KattupalliShipyard was expected to be rolled out by 2012-13.