God knows what these workers are doing after the closure of Chittagong shipbreaking yards in August 2010.
Around 50 thousand workers were said to be involved directly in the breaking yards.
No doubts the activities in the shipbreaking yards were not well regulated, yards were polluting the environment and the occupational safety and health condition was poor...............but now who will take responsibility of these tens of thousands of workers and their family members?
Both Government and Industry should act in a more responsible manner. They should sit together to find an interim solution and keep the activities going. If recently ordered 'pre-cleaning of ships before import' is the ultimate issue, then Government may take some initiatives for the time being to break the deadlock and later start looking for a permanent and productive solution of the problem.
As interim measure Government may -
- subsidize a part of the cost of pre-cleaning of scrap ships in the exporting countries as required by the Supreme Court order, or
- reduce/waive taxes for importing ships for a period of time to compensate the cost of pre-cleaning of ships.
Later, Government may take initiatives to minimize or compensate the cost of cleaning/removal of hazardous materials from the ships to help the Bangladeshi Shipbreaking industry to remain competitive with other shipbreaking nations. Government may -
- establish modern Waste Reception Facility in Chittagong through public private partnership (PPP) or with the help of UN agencies (eg World Bank, ADB etc) and International aid organizations ( like, Norad, JICA, GEF etc), who showed keen interest in the past to support the Shipbreaking industry to improve the working condition and the environment.
- train interested people or companies to develop skilled man-power capable of providing hazardous material cleaning/removal and disposal services.
- ensure acceptable shipbreaking practise and make bilateral agreements with the shipping nations for procuring old ships directly directly by the Bangladeshi Shipbreakers to avoid costly Cash Buyers and other brokers.
