India's Ship Recycling Bill 2019 Aims to Restrict Use of Hazardous Material

The Lok Sabha on Monday (9th Dec'19) passed the Recycling of Ships Bill, 2019 that seeks to restrict the use of hazardous materials on ships and provide safety cover to workers. Now the yards in India operate in accordance with the standards of the Hong Kong Convention.

-- As per the Bill, ships should not use prohibited hazardous materials as notified. Further, ship recycling facilities are required to be authorized and ships shall be recycled only in authorized ship recycling facilities.

-- A bill to provide for the regulation of recycling of ships by setting certain standards and laying down the statutory mechanism for enforcement of such standards and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

-- The bill includes dismantling of a ship at a ship recycling facility in order to recover components and materials for reprocessing and reuse, while taking care of hazardous and other materials and includes associated operations such as storage, treatment of components and materials on site, but not their further processing or disposal in separate facilities.

The bill shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint and different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act and any reference in any such provision to the commencement of this Act shall be construed as a reference to the coming into force of that provision.

Alang in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat in India is the recycling hub of the country. Recycling of ships emerged as a major industry in 1983 and has fast emerged as a major leading destination.

According to data maintained with SteelMint, India's imports of ships was recorded at 2,284,340 LDT in 2018 & 1,233,819 LT in 2019 (till October).