Wednesday 8 May 2013

Chittagong Steamship Corporation Ltd


At the time of partition there were very few industrialists and one of them was Mr. Eduljee Dinshaw. He had business interest in all major English companies like Ralli Brothers, Forbs Campbell, Greece Cotton etc. In 1959, Mr. Eduljee Dinshaw established a company in East Pakistan by the name of Chittagong Steamship Company in which famous parsi family of Mr. Jamshed Marker was also a shareholder. Initially this company was given premises for office in East Pakistan by Mr. Abdul Ahad a Bengali Muslim businessman. He was also Director of this shipping company.  Later Mr. Dinshaw bought Ralli Brother Building at Wood Street, Karachi for Chittagong Steamship Company.

This Public Sector Company was also sponsored by the families of Mr. Minocher Dinshaw, Mr. Godrej Kandawala and Mr. Jamshed Marker. As there was not much response from the public in East and West Pakistan the remaining shares were taken over by Trans Oceanic Steamship Company.

Though the Company was registered in Chittagong with Head office there and Karachi regional office at Ralli Brothers Building, the Management of the Company was entirely in the hands of Mr. Eddie Dinshaw who carried out day to day business from his office at 260 R. A. Lines, Karachi.

The  first  vessel  purchased  by  the  Company  and  registered in 1959 in Chittagong, was “ss Chittagong City”. Subsequently, the company purchased another cargo vessel and registered it as “ss Dacca City” in Chittagong. Both these vessels started plying between Karachi / Chittagong / Chalna. Later these vessels were subsequently scrapped in 1972.

In  1970  an  order  was  placed  in Sunderland  to  build  a  cargo  vessel  for  the  Company which  was delivered in January, 1972 and registered on 23rd January, 1972 at Karachi as “MV Ocean Envoy”. This  brand  new vessel was taken over by the Government at the time of nationalization in 1974 and handed over to PSC, later after merger of PSC & NSC in 1979, it became a part of PNS fleet. 

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