- India aims to attract ships from Europe and Japan for scrapping.
- Especially in Alang, one of the biggest ship breaking yards of the world.
- Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, more vessels would double the recycling which is presently 4.5 million light displacement tonnage (LDT) by 2024.
- LDT is the weight of the ship after removal of cargo, passengers, crew, fuel, ballast water, internal storage etc.
According to a recent news article published in the The Times of India, ship recycling is to create 1.5 lakh jobs in next three years.
1.5 lakh jobs
The doubling of recycling capacity is expected to generate an additional 1.5 lakh jobs in the ship recycling industry.
At present, Alang employs around 50,000 labourers skilled in breaking ships.
Europe and Japan account for nearly 35% of the total ships dismantled across the world.
But European countries don’t send the vessels for scrapping outside the EU due to its regulations.
European Union regulations
The government plans to achieve this with compliance to the European Union regulations.
Haresh Parmar, joint secretary of the Alang Ship Recycling Industries Association said, “EU laws with regard to ship recycling are very stringent. These need to be eased for Alang and we hope the central government will take the required steps. The government may upgrade some facilities at Alang and if the EU gives some relaxation, many European ships would come here.”
Recycling of Ships Act in 2019
India had enacted the Recycling of Ships Act in 2019 and acceded to Hong Kong International Convention (HKC).
According to Sitharaman, post-enactment of the law, around 90 ship recycling yards at Alang in Gujarat have already achieved HKC-compliant certificates.
HKC norms
Alang ship recycling yard has 90 plots that fully comply with the HKC norms and are expecting to get more ships from Japan, Korea and other countries.
India’s share in the global ship recycling business is around 30%. India recycles 70 lakh gross tonnage of ships per annum while Bangladesh recycles 68 lakh gross tonnage.
Pakistan recycles 37 lakh gross tonnage of ships followed by China which recycles 34 lakh gross tonnage per year.
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Source: Times of India
