Cabinet approves draft ship breaking, recycling policy

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Monira Munni The cabinet gave Monday its stamp of approval to the much-awaited draft ship breaking and ship recycling rules-2011 aimed at making the growing sector 'green' and worker-friendly. The approval came at the regular meeting of the cabinet held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair. "We now have a ship breaking and recycling policy for establishing an environment-friendly industry," Industries Minister Dilip Barua told the FE after the meeting. The approved draft policy will be published as gazette notification today (Tuesday) as per a directive issued by the Supreme Court (SC), he said. Earlier, the Supreme Court in November directed the government to formulate a set of rules by December 14 to free the ship breaking industry from pollution and ensure workers' safety. It also asked the Industries Ministry secretary to appear before the court with a copy of the government gazette on the rules. The main focus of the rules is a green and worker-friendly ship breaking management according to Labour Law 2006 and Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act 1995 (Amended in 2010), additional secretary of the Ministry of Industries (MoI) ABM Khorshed Alam said. The fee for inspection of each old vessel prior to breaking will be set after discussion with the Ministry of Finance, he said adding before formation of the relevant board the sector would be monitored by MoI. The rules contain eight chapters, 53 rules and seven annexes and incorporate the measures like formation of a board, a one stop-service provider, beaching permission, ship recycling process, workers' safety and hazardous waste management, environmental compliance and penalty provisions, MoI officials said. The Ship Building and Ship Recycling Board (SBSRB) will provide NOCs (No Objection Certificates) to facilitate letters of credit for importing scrap vessels by evaluating and examining the ships' details, the MOUs and the inventory of HW (hazardous waste) as per the import policy order, they added. Bangladesh is the first country in South Asia that has a ship breaking and recycling policy, technical adviser of Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association (BSBA) Captain Salahuddin Ahmed said adding there is no such policy in India and Pakistan. "We were looking forward to comprehensive rules, and the cabinet-approved rules are wide-ranging," he said adding, "Now the industry will be under a board and we hope we do not have to go to the court." On February 13 this year, the government declared ship breaking as an industry after a high-profile meeting. The MoI issued a gazette notification on October 20 declaring seven 'mouzas' under Sitakunda upazila a designated zone keeping in view better environmental and safety standards. The ship breaking industry, located on the seashore in Chittagong, is the main source of iron and steel. Private re-rolling mills and steel mills melt the scraps dismantled from ships to produce mild steel (MS) rods, bars and angles.