CHAPTER 1

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Dredging is a process of removal of sediments and debris from the bottom of water bodies
(river, estuaries, sea, etc.) using special devices “dredgers” for facilitating the safe
movement of ships. Naturally occurring harbours normally face limitation of depths and
economic potential, whereas sustainability of the water borne transport increases with
increase in ship size i.e. larger the ship size the better energy efficiency and hence lesser
carbon emission and more cost effective. In order to be benefited from scale of operations
and harness efficiency, ship size continues to grow horizontally and vertically, forcing ports
to provide deeper and wider channels, docks/quay to handle bigger ships. Therefore,
dredging becomes an inevitable process for ports to sustain business, economy and
environment.

Sediment transport or sediment movement and siltation characteristics of a place decides

approximately how much sediment will deposit over a period of time in the navigational
path. Depending on the rate of material deposition through natural processes, the sediment
quantity or approximate reduction of available depth over a period of time can be estimated,
which is required to be removed periodically to maintain the operational depth. This process
of removing the deposited material is termed as Maintenance Dredging, which is a
continuous process depending on the water body characteristics.

However, to receive larger ships, navigational channels, berths, harbour basin etc., may
need to be deepened and widened further to a desired depth by cutting and removing virgin
soil/ rock strata. Such dredging operation of removal of virgin soil is termed as Capital
dredging. Hence, capital dredging is a one-time activity and expenditure on such dredging
in Government accounting system is classified as capital expenditure. Every capital
dredging activity will certainly lead to higher magnitude of maintenance dredging to
maintain the created depth.

1.2 INDIAN DREDGING SCENARIO

During 2017-18 and 2018-19, dredging (maintenance and capital) of about 159.36 million
cum was carried out across major ports of which, the capital dredging accounted for about
20%.The Table below may be referred: