Alang is waiting for Clemenceau

Environmentalists may be angry but many are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the discarded French warship - for their bread and butter.

Environmentalists may be up in arms but many people in Alang are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the discarded and controversial French warship Clemenceau - for their bread and butter.

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Alang has for long been a booming graveyard of ships from the world over, a place where vessels are ripped apart for every little particle that will fetch money as scrap. But work is scarce today and so, as far as the mass of workers is concerned, Clemenceau is more than welcome.

Once hailed as Asia's biggest ship-breaking yard, the fortunes of Alang - about 250 km fm Ahmedabad - are facing a downturn. The number of ships arriving for their death fell from more than 300 in 2002 to 73 in 2005. The revenue, too, has plummeted, from Rs 355.9 million to Rs 60 million during the same period.

Alang Ship Breakers Association president Raj Bansal said the business had moved to Bangladesh and Pakistan because environment protection laws in the two countries were not as tough. "Environmental laws are not so stringently followed in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Moreover, cheaper labour in those countries is an advantage," said Bansal.

The ship-breaking yard came up in 1982. Alang's unique geographical feature, with the highest ebb-and-high-tide difference, helped the ship breaking industry to grow and grow. Very soon, the 10-km stretch of muddy beach started seeing ships coming to meet their end.

It first started attracting business from Mumbai. Soon the yard was receiving as many as 315 ships out of an estimated 600 ships decommissioned around the world annually. While that meant good profits for ship breakers, activists alleged that the nearly 40,000 workers, mostly from Orissa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, faced toxic waste of old ships, becoming victims of diseases in the process.

The end-of-life ships, most of them built before any regulations on shipbuilding came into effect, usually contain asbestos, lead and explosive materials. These materials damage the environment, the health of ship-breaking crews and also cause serious accidents.

Although the state-run Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) says the Alang yard has equipment and skills to dispose of toxic wastes from ships, environmental activists feel the industry has a lot to do to reduce the hazards.

Greenpeace has been leading protests against new arrivals of ships here without being decontaminated in the country of their origin.

"Had the technology to dispose of the toxic ship been cheap and easy, the French themselves would have taken care of the ship instead of giving away the business to India," said Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist from New Delhi.

Another factor responsible for Alang's downfall is the unfavourable duty structure.

Compounding Alang's problems are a sharp rise in steel and sponge iron production and increased imports of melting scrap.

Alang's share of steel production through recycling of scrap has come down from above three million tonnes in 1998-99 to about 680,000 tonnes in 2004-05.

"Our competition was with melting steel suppliers when the import duty on ships and imported melting scrap was 15 per cent. Three years ago, the duty on ships was reduced to 10 per cent whereas the duty on imported scrap was done away with. Now how can we compete with them?" Bansal asked.

Many suggestions have been made to the Gujarat government to revive Alang, whose ship breaking industry has contributed revenue to both the central and Gujarat governments.

"We submitted a draft of suggestions in September. It is up to the government when it takes up the matter," said GMB vice chairman HK Das. "But we are keen to revive the business in Alang."