Breaking up at Alang

A Supreme Court direction that the government look into workers' safety at the world's biggest and most notorious shipbreaking yard, located in Gujarat, will not bring back the scores who die here every year due to accidents and inhaling toxins. It might turn back the tide, though—but only if both state and Central governments are willing to surrender their exchequers' dependency on Alang.

By Yatish Yadav

Gorakhpur town, in east Uttar Pradesh, is in perpetual mourning. The infamous Alang Shipbreaking Yard in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district has most of its workers coming from villages in the Gorakhpur district. And each village has a horrific story to tell about how Alang claimed its men. Lalji Gupta died in Alang when he was just 40 years old. He was cremated there and the family was not informed. The contractor told them, "We don't know if he has ever worked with us."

That might change: the Supreme Court recently ordered a technical expert committee headed by Dr Prodipto Ghosh, secretary, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, to review the situation and the ground safety mechanisms at Alang. Non-governmental organisations have also turned the heat on government and shipyard authorities.

Alang came into being following the beaching of the MV Kota Tenjong in 1983, turning this once immaculate beach into the world's leading shipbreaking yard—and into a toxic hotspot. Derelicts from all over the world are tethered here to be hammered and sawed and blow-flamed into pieces that are then sold as scrap. The mafia that operates there has made certain that few records exist of those who have worked there; and those who work there do so in conditions that cannot be embraced by the word "hazardous". Shipbreaking involves breathing in toxins and metal and asbestos dust, and most workers at Alang die relatively young and untreated.

Workers' lives here are jeopardised by a near-total lack of precautions and planning. Accidents are the norm, with many workers dying of accidents and explosions. (Workers say that, every month, four to five people die at the yard.) Most of them are outsiders: Gujarati workers consider the shipbreaking jobs too perilous, and most labourers are migrants from states as far away as Orissa, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.

The migrants are mainly extremely impoverished, living onsite in inadequate, makeshift facilities. There is a clear lack of basic minimum requirements such as community sanitation, medical and recreation facilities, and even of safe drinking water. They inhale the toxic fumes day and night, in the yard and in their sleeping quarters. Yard-owners have no complete registration of workers, nor the government reliable statistics of the number of workers.

The Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) keeps figures of "deaths by accident", but in the absence of any reliable information on the total number of workers, these stats are meaningless. The GMB says that seven workers died in explosions in 2003. However, eyewitnesses from a Greenpeace delegation found at least 20 people dead in just two explosions the same year: eight people had died in February 2003 on the Greek tanker Amina in plot no 42. The other explosion was on the container ship Invalle on May 19, 2003, in which 12 workers died. Additionally, five big accidents involving fatalities occurred in 2003 on which information is incomplete.

In a more recent incident on January 5, 2007, the bodies of labourers were recovered after they drowned in the hold of the MV North Sea. The incident occurred at Plot Number 29, which belongs to one R L Kadalia.

This migrant workforce does not get any formal training to deal with toxics materials. There is a massive shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), in general, and appropriate PPE, in particular: labourers are hardly provided with even basic equipment such as helmets and gumboots. (These tools only appear in sufficient quantities, and of proper quality, when there is an inspection or a safety audit.) There is no work plan, no fixed working hours. Labourers sometimes work in the yard for 24 hours at a stretch without receiving any overtime. They routinely get no compensation for the loss of fingers, toes, or even entire hands.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) had made its stand clear on shipbreaking in its affidavit dated February 10, 2006, that India has consistently taken a stand that ships, prior to dismantling, should be decontaminated "to the extent possible". The words, however, virtualy gift yard-owners a huge loophole. On August 30, 2006, the Final Report of the Technical Experts Committee on Management of Hazardous Wastes Relating to Shipbreaking stated that "the average annual incidence of fatal accidents in the shipbreaking industry is 2.0 per 1000 workers while the all-India incidence of fatal accidents during the same period in [the] mining industry, which is considered to be the most accident prone industry, is 0.34 per 1000 workers".

The Basel Action Network (BAN), which tries to enforce better environment for workers and putting in place laws to ensure their safety, says, "It is fundamentally clear that the Alang yards currently and for the foreseeable future cannot operate in a manner which is expected by international norms (eg, in an environmentally sound manner). It is the equivalent of a death sentence to thousands of workers, either by the immediate death by accidents or from the slow death of cancer and asbestosis. The argument that workers deserve to make a living in such conditions rings very hollow indeed."

Says Gopal Krishna, environment expert and petitioner in the Supreme Court, "Our demand is not to close this business but to adopt a safe and secure environment for this industry." He is vehement that India should not be treated as a waste ground by the developing countries, and takes the example of the SS Blue Lady (the SS Norway before it reached India: the ship was cunningly renamed to hide its French origins), which has been hawsered in Alang on the pretext that it is replenishing the food and water supply for its crew. Bearing at least 1,200 tonnes of asbestos and an undetermined quantity of contaminated materials, including possible human carcinogens, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other toxic wastes, the ship poses a clear threat to human health and the environment at Alang.

"Attempts to dispose the vessel in off Bangladesh in early 2006 failed, when the Bangladeshi government recognised the public health and environmental dangers posed by the SS Norway, and prohibited it from entering Bangladeshi territory," says Gopal Krishna. "Efforts to dispose off the vessel in India are now underway."

But, at the very first meeting of the Supreme Court-mandated technical expert committee, Dr Prodipto Ghosh stated that "since the ships are meant for recycling, the same are not to be considered as wastes". This betrayed his total, and surprising, ignorance of the Basel Convention, in particular Article 2.1, which defines waste as "substances or objects, which are disposed of or are intended to be disposed of or are required to be disposed of by the provisions of national law…." BAN has demanded that Germany (the owner of the SS Blue Lady) must take the ship back at once, as its export is a clear violation of Article 16 of the European Union Waste Shipment Regulation, Article 6 of the Basel Convention, and the Basel Ban Amendment.

Complicating matters is the fact that the shipbreaking industry in India does not fall under one ministry. Since a multitude of administrative bodies (the ministry of steel, the MoEF, the ministry of labour) each have their partial responsibilities, there is no coordinated approach towards the industry. So, while the Supreme Court gives the needed directions, it finds it difficult to get its directions and judgments enforced.

But the delay in SS Blue Lady case has another angle. Reuben Gossens, a maritime historian, says, "The delays are proof of what is really happening in India and of the pressure that the SRIA [Ship Recycling Industries Association] is placing on the courts whilst lobbying with government officials. The entire Alang industry is at stake and, thus, the government and courts are under great pressure. We need to understand that the shipbreaking industry adds a great deal to the economies of the state of Gujarat and of India."

This is precisely how the great Indian ship stays afloat.