Ship owners shirking responsibilities contend Indian ship breakers
The Indian ship breakers are opposed to ratifying the International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships that was adopted in May 2009. A government official in the Ministry of Shipping, Government of India confirmed that a request has been made by ship breakers’ association asking the government not to ratify the Convention.
Serious differences that exist between Indian ship breakers and the international body took centre stage at the 2nd National Workshop of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) held on 23rd February 2009 in Mumbai.
P. S. Nagarsheth, President of the Iron Steel Scrap & Shipbreakers’ Association stated, “We held a meeting last week with the A. P. V. N. Sarma, Secretary, Ministry of Shipping and requested him not to ratify the Convention. At the IMO workshop the European ship owners were trying to impose greater liability on ship breakers by insisting on having the certification of inventory of hazardous material throughout the life of the ship. They want ‘the certification to be maintained on board the ship at all stages of the ‘ship’s journey from its cradle to the grave’. A representative from the Ship Building Research of Japan also desired that there should be an approval of the recycling plan and each constituent of the hazardous material should also be identified and an inventory maintained.”
Another spokesman of the ship breakers body informed that the developed nations want the beaching method of re-cycling - now prevalent at the world’s largest ship breaking yard at Alang in Gujarat (Western India) - to be totally dismantled.
Mr Nagarsheth described this as ‘a ploy of the shipowners’ from developed nations to impose the entire responsibility on ship breakers so that they would not be held ‘accountable in any way’. He questioned the practicality of keeping track of the TBT and other hazardous material that exists in paints through out the life of a ship that too without insisting on the TBT paint being replaced and allowing over-painting during the ship’s life. This means that if a few pounds of such material were found to be short at the time of recycling stage, the ship recycler would have to make up the shortfall at their own cost.
“Besides, there is no clear demarcation when a vessel ceases to be a ship,” he pointed out. “Once a ship is delivered to the ship recycler, it should cease to be a ship as it becomes a mere ‘floating cargo’. Since the IMO’s role is restricted until the ship remains a ship hence by terming it as ‘cargo’ and no more a floating structure, the role of IMO would cease. Thereafter, the operations and role of workers at the yard would be addressed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The handling of hazardous waste should be based on the Basel norms.”