In an unusual statement, a top ship cycling industry representative has
sought to justify large number of deaths due to accidents occurring at the
Alang shipbreaking yard, on south Saurashtra coast in Gujarat, saying, “Every
industry has accidents”. Talking to a news portal, KB Tayal, vice president of
the Ship Recycling Industries Association (India), Alang, said, “Some
(industries) might have more (accidents) than others. Even though it happens,
it might be due to negligence of workers, or of the machinery. When it happens,
no problem. We pay compensation to workers and a penalty to the government.”
The statement, which should sound shocking to environmentalists, has
come in the wake of the Government of India (GoI) decision to look after the
affairs of ship recycling industry to the Ministry of Shipping. Currently, the
Ministry of Steel is the nodal agency. Significantly, Tayal has sought to
oppose the GoI move saying, it would have “”no effect on our business.” Tayal’s
organization represents all companies in the business of ship recylcing in
Alang and Sosiya. “They must compulsorily be members of the association before
they can get permission from the Gujarat Maritime Board to begin cutting”, the
site said.
The industry representative
further said, GoI can make “whatever policies they have to make, but they
cannot go against the industries either way… When you look at it in terms of
pricing, the Ministry of Steel was better equipped for that.” Expressing
apprehensions about GoI move, he added, “but the Ministry of Shipping can look
into other aspects.”
Quoting environmental experts, the site commented, the decision to make
Shipping Ministry responsible for shipbreaking “could save lives”, adding,
“This could be a rare chance for the government to reinvent a sector that has
little regulation and is notorious for unsafe labour and health practices.”
Mridula Chari, the author, insisted, “This could result in the creation of more
ship-breaking ports modeled on the lines of the world’s largest ship-breaking
centre in Alang, Gujarat.”
The site quotes senior environmentalist Rohit Prajapati to say, “Fires,
contamination by such chemicals as asbestos and tributyltin and workers
accidents are the biggest problems in Alang today. Pointing out that this was
the major reason for the death of five persons cause by explosion due to gas
leak on June 28, when the last accident took place, he suggested that the actual
figures of death should be much higher than reported.
“Gujarat’s Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health says that 460
people have died since the Alang yard opened in 1983, an average of 15 each
year. But activists working in the area estimate that the total number could be
50 times higher, counting the fatalities reported in small local newspapers”,
the site says, quoting Prajapati to say, “If you talk to hospitals, officers
with the directorate and even doctors off the record, they will admit the reality
of the situation.”
But would the new GoI decision to hand over the ship recycling sector
to the Ministry of Shipping become an “opportunity for the hazardous
shipbreaking sector in India to reinvent itself?” Ravi Agarwal, director of
Toxics Link, an NGO that has been working on the issue of toxins in ship
recycling since 1992, believes as of today, things are so bad with ti that
“there is no clarity on who the owners are, what proper transaction values are,
when do clearances come in. It would be much better if all of this is made
above board.”
However, Prajapati, who is with the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti,
Vadodara, does not believe the move will benefit the workers. “They are
building up a structure where only one department can make point in court of
law,” said Prajapati. “Multiple departments can confuse the court, where you
might have one department that stands against the industry. Modi had assured
the industry that he would do this while campaigning.”
With an annual turnover of over Rs 2,500 crore and approximately 40,000
workers, the site says, “Ships to be scrapped are rammed into the beach at high
tide. Once the tide recedes, workers begin to dismantle the ship from front to
back. As they remove parts of the ship, they haul the remnants further up the
beach, eventually drawing the entire ship in. The largest problem with
beaching, apart from the high risk to labour, is that dangerous chemicals often
leak into the sea.”
Business is certainly booming. According to data from the association,
more ships are being broken at Alang today than ever before.
Source: counterview. 19 October 2014
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