space Press Releases, News Stories

Shirish Nadkarni, Mumbai Lloyd's List

ANDHRA PRADESH, India, 6 December 2001 -- A POWERFUL lobby of environmentalists has taken strong exception to the proposed 60-plot shipbreaking unit on Vodarevu beach, near Chirala in the Prakasam district of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

The green lobby, aware that the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board gave a no-objection certificate on October 23 this year to the setting up of the Rs29.4m ($615,000) project, has urged the state government to withdraw the permission granted to the promoters, Andhra Seaports.

For the moment, the project has been held up because it has yet to receive clearance from the Shore Area Development Authority, which examines proposals under the coastal regulation zone rules.

In an area roughly 200 acres in size, three to four medium-sized ships could be broken up in each of the 60 plots planned.

If one considers that a medium-sized ship weighs in at 5,000 ldt, the average production of scrap metal would be 50-55 tonnes per day in each plot, making a daily production of 3,000 tonnes if all plots were full. The order of the pollution control board stipulates that the industry shall set up rain water harvesting structures, an effluent treatment plant and a sewage treatment plant; and that it shall “mechanise the steel plate handling to prevent occurrence of pollution.

“The company should employ a maximum number of local workers, to whom proper sanitation facilities should be provided,” the order adds. “The workers’ colony and the unit’s offices should not be constructed within the coastal regulation zone.”

Despite these apparent precautions, the environmentalists are dead against the project, since “several health and environmental hazards are associated with shipbreaking activity.”

In a joint statement issued in the capital city Hyderabad, Captain J Rama Rao, chairman of Forum for a Better Hyderabad, and Dr T Patanjali Sastry, president of the Environment Centre, Rajahmundry, said it was unfortunate that the board had revised its earlier stand on setting up of the unit at Vodarevu.

“We would like to remind the board that, in its own order dated February 14, 2000, it had noted that several health and environmental hazards are associated with shipbreaking activity,” the statement added.

“One can imagine the adverse impact on aquatic life due to the formation of oil slicks, the hazards associated with the handling and disposal of carcinogenic asbestos fibre and the release of heavy metals.

“The order had specifically mentioned the high health and occupational risks due to the cutting operations.”

Despite the resistance of the green lobby, the Andhra Pradesh state government appears likely to give the Vodarevu shipbreaking project the green light.

While India’s western coast has several shipbreaking yards, including those at Alang, Sosiya and Mumbai, there is no demolition yard along its eastern coastline. Vessels bound for the Indian subcontinent’s eastern coast usually end up in the shipbreaking yard at Chittagong in Bangladesh.

With shipping going through a cyclical phase of depression, and shipbuilding yards turning out a vast amount of new tonnage during the years 2001-03, a large number of shipowners are expected to put their older vessels out to pasture.

The Andhra Pradesh state government obviously does not wish to lose out on this opportunity.