Page 115 from: May 2008

May 2008 115

S H I P B R E A K I N G

lines. The other side of the road is a long thin

basti, or slum, made up of ad hoc housing

built and used by the yard workers. There

have been long-standing plans for a proper

housing settlement but, from all appearances,

that hasn’t happened.

Steady decline
On my last visit, the place was alive with the

smoke and fl are of thousands of cutting

torches and the groan of winches pulling slabs

of steel onto dry land. Since then, the number

and gross tonnage of ships coming to Alang

has steadily declined. In September of last

year, a Supreme Court ruling brought the

shipbreaking business to a virtual standstill.

My host for the day, Khomal Sharma, invited

me to see his new operation – Leela Ship Recy-

cling Ltd – located at plot 2 on the southern

end of the beach. His facility, with its freshly-

painted walls and well-trimmed landscaping,

seemed a trifl e out of place in this industrial

neighbourhood.

When the iron gates of the Leela yard rolled

open, I got an unencumbered look at the

working beach. There were plenty of ships in

sight. About half were beached at one of the

152 plots up and down the strand. An equal

number were anchored a few kilometres off-

shore, perhaps 50 or 60 in all. Oddly enough,

there was no smoke, and a glance up and

down revealed little or no cutting activity. My

fi rst impression was that it must be a holiday

but a closer look confi rmed otherwise. With

the exception of some access holes and moor-

ing cables laced through their bows, the

beached ships were pretty much intact.

On Leela’s shoreline, a small tanker was sit-

ting high and dry and was untouched. I asked

Mr Sharma why nothing seemed to be going

on. ‘We are all waiting for permissions,’ he

explained. ‘We now need a permit to anchor, a

permit to beach a vessel and a permit to begin

dismantling.’ A veritable freeze on cutting

new ships had been in place since last Sep-

tember’s ruling, he said.

Permit backlog
In June 2007, the Indian Supreme Court estab-

lished a panel to develop standard procedures

and environmental protocols for India’s ship

recycling industry. After their recommenda-

tions took effect in September, companies have

been busy applying for permits, fi ling appeals

and trying to comply with the new rules.

After three years of declining business, work

had come to a standstill. The last of the pre-

September boats were just fi nishing up and

the recently-arrived vessels needed to clear

the new licensing hurdles before work at the

beach would return to normal. Most of the

labourers returned home after the September

ruling, awaiting these permissions before they

could get back to work.

Everyone was in an upbeat mood on the day I

arrived. The fi rst cutting permits were fi nally

being issued and the four-month hiatus was

about to end. Soon labourers and cutters would

be called back to their jobs, which pay 150 to

250 rupees per day (US$ 3.75-6.25). As the

permitting backlog was cleared, Mr Sharma

surmised that future beaching permits should

take only a week to secure. Once beaching per-

mits are issued for the ships at anchor, they will

be dramatically run aground on the next high

tide where they will wait for dismantling clear-

ance. With any luck, the whole process going

forward might take just a few weeks.

In the shipbreaking business, delays are

expensive. Even a relatively small 3000-tonne

ship can cost over a Euro 1 million. Interest

rates in India currently exceed 10% so these

permitting delays place a substantial burden

on the yard owners. Cash fl ow remains nega-

tive until that fi rst torch cut is made.

The ‘Clemenceau’ saga
Changes to India’s shipbreaking rules did not

just spontaneously occur. Alang garnered

international attention in 2006 with the

‘Clemenceau’ affair. On New Year’s Eve 2005,

the French aircraft carrier ‘Clemenceau’ set off

from Toulon bound for dismantling in Alang.

The departure had been temporarily blocked

by a consortium of environmental groups

which argued that the export of any vessel

with asbestos on board was a violation of the

Basel Convention, to which France and India

are both signatories. Ostensibly, the ship had

been cleared of asbestos in Greece prior to set-

ting off for India. After review, it was agreed

that there were still hundreds of tonnes of

asbestos that went unnoticed during the ini-

tial cursory clean-up.

Khomal Sharma, Managing Director of Leela Ship Recycling.
In March, delegates of the International Maritime Board (IMO) inspected
the shipbreaking industries in Alang.

The busy streets of Bhavnagar, a small town 30 km from the Alang
shipbreaking beaches.

The cruise ship Blue Lady, which has a high asbestos content, is sitting in the sand, 500 metres offshore.

RI_023_Shipbreaking.indd 4 14-05-2008 13:53:45