Shipbreaking biz booms in Gujarat
due to slump in global trade
Shipbreaking at Alang in Gujarat
has once again become booming business thanks to the slump in global trade, where
owners would prefer scrapping their ships than seeing them sit idle. Now, if
only they could take better care of their migrant labour.
The view from the top of a ship at Alang, in
Gujarat, is surreal—ten kilometres of beach on which hapless ships, in various
states of dismemberment, lie listlessly in one of the 140 ‘yards’—a shadow of
their former seagoing selves. Many are lined up in the waters off the beach
like lambs to the slaughter.
Nearby, a cross-section of seven floors is what
remains of a 23-year old 10 MT Japanese vessel that was once a car carrier, two
months after it docked at Alang. Around 200 workers have been hired to help
scrap the vessel. While some are working in the yard cutting the steel sheets, taking
out the nuts and bolts of the ship machinery, others are dismantling the ship
from inside.
Alang, once a desolate dot on the Gujarat
coastline, is arguably the world’s most famous graveyard for ships, a
repository for much of the world’s navies and merchant lines. What makes it
ideal for this task is a beach endowed with gentle slopes as well as high tides
that allow ships to simply glide onto sand as if they were hovercrafts.
The
shipbreaking industry here started in 1983 and was sailing along at a decent
clip before, running into headwinds. When economies boom, ship breaking suffers
as ships are in high demand. Conversely, an economic lull spells a boom as idle
ships can make more money as scrap. Between 2006-07 and 2007-08, the pre-crisis
years, only 272 ships were scrapped in Alang.
However, in the last 3 years
alone from 2008-09 to 2010-11, the number has more than tripled to 969. This
year, Alang is expecting a record number of around 400 vessels to coast up onto
its beach and die.
“In the last 2 years we have done 60% of the global
ship demolition here,” says Haresh Parmar of Shiv Ship Breaking Co. Parmar, like
most other shipbreakers, complains about how the rupee depreciation is burning
a hole in Alang’s pockets as buying ships has become costlier. He also
complains about all the negative publicity that the place has garnered mainly
because “westerners don’t like to see our growth,” he says.
Slowdowns aside, depressed global freight rates
since 2009, and high prices for steel scrap have been big catalysts for the
spurt in shipbreaking. In 2009 and 2010, the volumes in global shipbreaking
aggregated around 44 million gross tonnage (GT)—twice the volumes of the 4 preceding years.
CRISIL estimates that, of the 180 million GT of global
shipping capacities that are more than 20 years old, around 55 million GT will
be available for breaking in the next 24 months. The shipbreaking industry
meets 30% of India
Yet, it is worth asking if anything has actually
changed in Alang since its inception in 1983. The Supreme Court did issue
guidelines on specific norms to be followed in the yards that came out in 2002,
but it did nothing to deter ghastly incidents like the one five years ago where
200 workers died in a ship explosion.
The common slogan “Safe Alang, Green
Alang” that you can around town may just be nothing more than writing on the
wall.
Cheap labour, cheaper lives:
What really makes Alang tick, is the cheap
labour—some 50,000—strong—that comes flocking to this beach from states like UP,
Bihar and Orissa. Average wages are around Rs 6,000
to Rs 7,000 per month and accommodations are shacks with no running water or
toilets—which is why Alang is entirely occupied by non-Gujaratis. The managers,
officers and owners of yards come from the nearby and prosperous district of
Bhavnagar.
Yet, most workers in Alang have been stuck here for
over 20 years due to lack of employment opportunities back home. It is only in
the past 2 years that they have been provided with some protective
gear—gloves, boots and hard hats.
In spite of this, the nearby private clinic
receives some 35 injured patients everyday and runs a houseful 14 bed nursing
home.
“Most accidents take place because of fatigue. Earlier, Sundays were also
not an off, but now it is a holiday,” a worker from Gorakhpur
Although the apex court
specified that the work will go on from 7 am to 7 pm, most yards have limited
this rule only to the ‘gas-cutting’ activity (cutting the ship with LPG and
oxygen) and function well into midnight carrying on with other tasks in the
yard.
Several other rules are also broken in the process
of breaking a ship. The engine room, one of the darkest places in the ship, is
supposed to be lit up before any work takes place there but that seldom happens.
A senior industry person elaborating on the occupational hazards created by the
shipbreaking industry said, “All personnel protective equipment has to be
provided as per Supreme Court guidelines. But not a single worker has been
given a mask to shield himself against the toxic fumes which come out in the
gas cutting process.”
According to the managers of these
yards, out of the total accidents that take place in the shipbreaking process, 20%
take place on the ship while the other 80% in the yard.
“The smaller the size of the yard the
greater the incidence of accidents,”
one of the yard managers said. The smallest yard size in Alang is just 30
meters and there are some 80 of them out of the existing 140. Each yard has
appointed a ‘safety officer’ with educational qualification of up to 12th
standard.
Business as usual:
Gujarat Maritime Board and Gujarat Pollution
Control Board (GPCB)—the monitoring agencies in this case have not taken any
action against the yards for not adhering to the rules. Before the process of
shipbreaking starts, the first step is to remove oil from its tank. After this,
the shipyard is supposed to get an environmental clearance certificate from
GPCB to proceed with further work.
According to some senior shipbreakers, the
decontamination certificate which is to be obtained from the GPCB after all the
oil is removed from the ship to continue with shipbreaking is made readily
available after a certain payment.
“There is a lot of corruption that takes
place since a lot of permissions etc have come into play. No one is really
concerned about the occupational hazards,” a senior shipbreaker said.
The port officer, S Chaddha ,
GMB however doesn’t see any reason for all the hue and cry surrounding safety. He
says that a plan to provide dormitory facility to the workers of Alang is in
the works. “We should be getting carbon credits for producing so much steel
without using any iron ore, water and so much wood without cutting a single
tree,” said Chaddha.
Meanwhile, the International Maritime
Organisation (IMO) in its Hong Kong Convention is contemplating a set of rules
and regulations for safe and environmentally sound ship recycling. “The
proposal by IMO is such that it is pointedly against the beaching method which
is unfair to our country. We are trying to approach the matter along with the
other countries which will be affected by such a move —Pakistan and Bangladesh
Boomtime:
In the meantime India
“New ships ordered in 2006-08
will be ready for delivery by 2012, and result in expansion in global
capacities by more than 25 per cent. However, global trade is expected to slow
down, driving reduction in freight rates in the next 2 years. These factors
will together improve the economics for increased scrapping of older ships,”
said Gurpreet Chhatwal, Director, CRISIL Ratings.
Uncertainty regarding legal
restrictions on shipbreaking in Bangladesh ,
and China ’s higher shipbreaking costs will help India
Pretty good news for an industry that deals with
death.
Source: The Business Standard. Ruchika Chitravanshi. 29 December 2011
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