According to Indian media, the Indian Finance Minister reported that the ship recycling capacity of the country will be doubled by 2024, with India trying to bring more ships from Europe and Japan.
Specifically, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget 2021-2022 in Parliament, explained that the increase of the capacity will lead to 1.5 lakh jobs.
The Hindu cites Minister, who commented that “Efforts will be made to bring more ships to India from Europe and Japan. Recycling capacity of around 4.5 Million Light Displacement Tonne (LDT) will be doubled by 2024.”
To remind, India has enacted Recycling of Ships Act, 2019 and also acceded to the Hong Kong International Convention. Sitharaman stated that post-enactment of the law, around 90 ship recycling yards at Alang in Gujarat have already achieved HKC-compliant certificates.
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He added that India aims to acquire at least 50% of the global ship recycling business. The country’s share in the ship recycling business is around 30% at present.
Up to now, India has been recycling 70 lakh gross tonnage of ships per annum while that of Bangladesh is 68 lakh gross tonnage. Pakistan recycles 37 lakh gross tonnage of ships and that of China is 34 lakh gross tonnage per year. Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has recently said that India aspires to grab at least 50% of the global ship recycling business. The country’s share in the ship recycling business is around 30% at present.
India recycles around 300 of the 1,000 ships which are demolished per annum globally. However, countries like Japan, Europe and the US were not sending their ships for recycling to India in the absence of ratification of a global convention. The Hindu notes that that scenario is set to change with the Recycling of Ships Act, 2019.
The most recent report by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform revealed that in 2020 the beaches of Alang in India, Chattogram in Bangladesh, and Gadani in Pakistan saw approximately the 90% of the global world tonnage.
Concluding, the Minister noted that there are 53,000 merchant ships globally and out of them, 1,000 are recycled annually. Once more ships will start coming to India for demolition, the ship recycling’s contribution to the GDP will grow to $2.2 billion from present $1.3 billion.
