DG Shipping notified as National Authority for Recycling of Ships
The government has notified the Director General of Shipping (DG Shipping) as National Authority for Recycling of Ships under section 3 of the Recycling of Ships Act, 2019 on October 15, 2020.
DG Shipping
- It works for the ship recycling industry of India.
- The office of the national authority for recycling will be set up in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Gujarat is Asia’s largest ship breaking and ship recycling industry.
- DG Shipping will be India’s representative in International Maritime Organization (IMO).
- It is also enforcing all the conventions of IMO.
Functions of DG shipping
DG Shipping has been authorised to administer, supervise and monitor all activities relating to ship recycling. It will look after the sustainable development of the ship recycling industry. Other functions of the body includes:
- To monitor the compliance with environment-friendly norms.
- It will also look after the safety and health measures for the stakeholders working in the ship recycling industry.
- It will be acting as the final authority for approvals required by the ship-recycling yard owners and state governments.
Ship Recycling Act, 2019
This act was came into force on December 13, 2019. This act was bring in order to provide the regulation to the recycling of ships by setting certain international standards. It also seeks to lay down the statutory mechanism for enforcement of such standards. Before that, Government of India agreed to the Hong Kong International Convention for Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009 on November 28, 2019.
Provisions of the act
- The Recycling of Ships Act, 2019 restricts and prohibits the use or installation of hazardous materials and it has to be apply to all the ships whether the ship would be recycled or not.
- However, these restriction on use of hazardous materials will not be applied to warships and non-commercial ships operated by Government.
- Ships will be surveyed and certified on the inventory of hazardous materials used in ships.
- Under the legislation, ship recycling facilities are required to be authorized and only authorized ship recycling facilities would be recycling the ships.
- Act states that ships must be recycled in accordance with a ship-specific recycling plan.
Ship Recycling in India
India has aimed to double its contribution to GDP from ship recycling to over USD 2 billion after the ship recycling Act was enacted in December 2019. It has also aimed to take direct jobs from recycling sector to 90,000.
Current scenario
Presently, India is recycling 70 lakh gross tonnage of ships per annum. While India’s neighbours such as Bangladesh is contributing 68 lakh gross tonnage, Pakistan’s contribution is 37 lakh gross tonnage and China contributes 34 lakh gross tonnage of recycling.