Ship breakers react sharply against draft rules for yards

Jasim Uddin Haroon The government has prepared a set of draft rules for the country's ship breaking and ship recycling yards, incorporating some stringent measures like formation of a board, amid strong opposition from the main stakeholders. The proposed board will be headed by a chairman, to be appointed by the government. The Ministry of Industries prepared the rules in this regard and asked all stakeholders to submit their opinions within November 4. However, the sector insiders said the rules along with the proposed Ship Building and Ship Recycling Board (SBSRB) would be caught in bureaucratic tangles and threaten the country's over $1.2 billion ship breaking industry. They also asked the government to make the rules more realistic and implementable, as these are not user-friendly in their present form. Senior consultant of the Bangladesh Ship Breaking Association (BSBA) Anam Chowdhury said the proposed board would hinder the growth of the industry. So, it should be a simple and workable one. Besides, the ship breakers said the proposed provision of providing 1.0 per cent of letter of credit (LC) values to the board is irrational. "I don't find any logic of giving 1.0 per cent of the LC values to the board," Mr Anam added. The ship breakers were also critical of Tk 200,000 charge for inspection of each old vessel prior to breaking. Md Zafar Ahmed, owner of a leading ship breaking unit, said the provision would raise price of ship plates, leading to price hike of raw materials of the local steel mills. Currently, ship breakers are not paying any such big amount to any government body, he added. The ship breakers also said the provision of recruiting panel of safety officer and beaching master by the yards would also hinder sustained growth of the industry. According to the proposed rules, the yard owners have to get NoC from the SBSRB by submitting their respective yard's environment clearance certificate, details of ship, MoU signed with buyer, and inventory of hazardous materials on board for ship breaking or recycling. The ship recycling plan should have two components - ship recycling plan and ship recycling facility plan. The size of the yards should be such that while cutting a ship, both of its sides should have space for free circulation of workers, with sufficient width of at least five metres on each side, the proposed rules added.