Alang firm hires GEPIL to remove toxic waste from French warship

Alang-based ship breaking firm Shri Ram Vessels Scrap Pvt Ltd has hired an external agency to remove asbestos from the controversial French warship Clemenceau on its arrival. The company had struck the deal for the warship with the French defence ministry last year.

"We have hired the Gujarat Environment Protection Infrastructure Ltd (GEPIL) for independent inspection of the ship and removal of leftover toxic waste from the ship," said Mukesh Patel of Shri Ram Vessels, denying the allegations that the ship had excess toxic materials.

Owing to environmental hazards that ship breaking poses, the government agencies including the Customs department have also geared up for full inspection of the ship on its arrival.

He said if the French ship could not come here because it had asbestos used in it then no other ship can anchor on Alang shore as all the ships had asbestos used in their construction. Patel, however, did not quantify the volume of environmentally hazardous material used in the construction of the 1952-built LDT Clemenceau.

The French Authority, on the other hand, has given classroom and practical training to the GEPIL last year on how to remove asbestos from the defunct ships.

"We visited France twice last year to get the professional training from the French government to remove asbestos. First we visited in February and then in October to get the class room training and floor training on ship itself," said P Bhatti, CEO, GEPIL.

He said much asbestos was removed at the time of training itself. "Asbestos is used in large quantities in the boiler room and the pipelines. During training it was removed from there. All that we have to do now is to remove it from places between the hull and other places form where it can not be removed without demolishing it," said Bhatti.

GEPIL will continue to work on removal of asbestos as it breaks into pieces during its demolition during next eight to months after its arrival, he added.

When asked about the ship and the controversy, Mayank Desai, another Alang-based ship broker with Soham Overseas said the yard was well equipped to deal with such ships.

This is evident from the fact that this is the second such aircraft carrier which has come to Alang for demolition. He said the first one was the US aircraft carrier and was even bigger than the French one.