Pravin
Nagarsheth , was invited to address the first International
Ship Scrap Summit, held at Amsterdam in September
1999.
Delegates from Shipowners Classification Society,
American and European Union Government Officials, and representatives
of the Green Peace organization were present.
Mr. Pravin Nagarsheth was the only representative
of the shipbreaking industry from all over the world.
The main issues highlighted by him were:
- An independent survey should be conducted of all leading
shipbreaking yards in the world.
- The remedy against pollution lies in prevention of the use
of toxic materials in the building stage.
- Any strategy to control pollution resulting from shipbreaking
activity should be jointly worked out by all the parties concerned
viz. ship builder, repairer, owner and breaker
- Any regulation that this summit shall recommend must be
applicable universally to all ships scrapping countries and
not restricted to any one single country.
- There should be a regulation for Maritime Lien
on ship to cease, once the ship ceases to be a Maritime Carrier
and she herself becomes a cargo for scrapping. The stage should
be when the payment has been made against delivery by the breaker
and the ship is declared as cargo to customs and port authorities.
- Maritime Lien must be compulsorily registered by a would
be creditor within a maximum period of 90 days. Otherwise
it should cease to be a Maritime Lien.
- Identify and develop an economical safety gadget to protect
the workmen from all hazards of shipbreaking operations and
promote its use.
The issues addressed were Taxes and Levies
at all major Shipbreaking countries. An assessment was done
on the availability of ships for demolition and capacity of
all Shipbreaking yards across the world.
In order to study and understand the Shipbreaking
activities across various nations, Mr.
Pravin Nagarsheth visited
the Taiwan Shipbreaking yard in 1983 when it was the worlds
biggest shipbreaking yard. Taiwan has discontinued its shipbreaking
activities.
Analysis
Shipbreaking yards at all the 3 major countries,
viz. Pakistan, Bangladesh and China are substantially bigger
than the Indian yards.
In China they are breaking ships under a floating
method, which is lot more productive.
In China and Pakistan the entire loading is
mechanized, compared to the Indian manual process.
In Pakistan the oxygen gas is used thru pipelines.
No handling of the cylinder is done manually at the yard or
on the ship. This results in an overall reduction in the manpower
used.
The process at Bangladesh is similar to that
in India, and infact less mechanized than us and more labour
intensive. |
