By AKM Moinuddin
Dhaka, Feb 18 (UNB) - The ship-breaking sector, formally recognized recently as an industry, needs strict rules and regulations and proper enforcement of the rules for flourishing the sector through protecting environment and offering healthier benefits to the workers.
The parties involved in the sector think that it should be a serious duty of the government agencies and the industry people to ensure that least damage is caused to environment and also better deals offered to the workers engaged in the sector.
If needed, they think, the government should formulate new rules and regulations and ensure their proper enforcement for ensuring environment-friendly growth of the sector which makes a significant contribution to the economy and in employment generation.
On February 13, the government declared the ship-breaking as an industry after a meeting where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, a number of ministers, advisers and high officials were present to discuss the sector’s both positive and negative sides.
The government finally placed the ship-breaking industry under the Ministry of Industries after a fruitful meeting.
The ship-breaking industry, located at the seashore in Chittagong, is the main source of bulk of the raw materials used by some 500 private sector re-rolling mills and nearly 50 steel mills for producing mild steel rods, bars and angles at affordable prices.
However, the environmentalists fear that its unregulated and haphazard growth might lead to serious environmental degradation and health hazards.
Talking to UNB Correspondent AKM Moinuddin, Industries Minister Dilip Barua said they would take all the existing problems of the sector into cognizance and would resolve those through discussion with the stakeholders.
“We’ll take a realistic as well as environment and workers friendly policy to ensure the sector’s sustainability which is a must for country’s economic development,” he said.
Replying to a question, Barua said: “We will sit with the stakeholders soon after the gazette notification on the government decision.”
President of Bangladesh Ship Breakers’ Association Hefazatur Rahman said they would sit with Industries Minister Dilip Barua soon to get the government’s view on how they can proceed. “There will be a certain policy.”
Replying to a question, he said: “We don’t think we pollute environment. BELA unnecessarily gave color on the issue.”
Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers’ Association (BELA) welcomed the government decision of declaring ship-breaking as an industry.
“We think the decision will make the proper operation of the industry easier and the government will properly look after it so that the ship breakers take proper clearance certificates before breaking ships,” BELA senior lawyer Iqbal Kabir said.
YPSA (Young Power in Social Action), which has been advocating for a public policy to ensure human rights in the ship-breaking industry, also expressed happiness over the government decision.
YPSA senior executive Muhammad Ali Shahin said: “We want a change in the owners’ tendency o overlooking laws. We’re not against ship-breaking as such but what we’re telling is that it should be done within laws.”
He said that other ship-breaking countries are following specific rules and regulations. “We want similar things here. It will have to be specific about what will be the roles of the Industries Ministry.”
Welcoming the government’s declaration, YPSA chief executive M Arifur Rahman said they want proper government initiative to protect environment and ensure rights of the workers engaged in the ship-breaking industry.
Bangladesh Light Engineering Industries Owners Association (BLEIOA) also welcomed the government’s decision and think it would help the country’s light engineering sector to grow further as it largely depends on ship-breaking industry.
They suggested the government to formulate a policy after discussing with the concerned ministries and stakeholders for a sustainable and environment-friendly ship-breaking industry.
The growing demand for steel products in the country has encouraged a good number of private sector people to be engaged in the industry that proved to be very rewarding, in terms of profit and employment generation.
However, there are allegations in plenty that the ship-breakers often violate the environment by dumping hazardous chemicals and other materials on the sea-beach, rather callously.
Meanwhile, the owners of ship-breaking yards have allegedly been paying low wages to their workers who are exposed to very tough and hazardous conditions. In case of fatal accidents, the workers concerned are not adequately compensated. The government has already prepared a draft rule titled ‘Ship-breaking and Hazardous Waste Management Rules, 2010’ that has been posted on the official website of the Ministry of Environment and Forests seeking public opinion on it.
On February 24 last year, Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association (BELA) urged the Prime Minister to take necessary measures to enact laws to monitor the ship-breaking industries and import of hazardous ships in the country.
Earlier, on March 19 in 2009, the Supreme Court directed the government to ensure that no ship would enter Bangladesh for breaking without being pre-cleaned outside the territory of Bangladesh.
According to the Import Policy Rule 2009-2012, the Ministry of Commerce has imposed a condition on the ship breakers to obtain pre-clean certificates before importing the ships from outside, which the owners of the ship breaking yards are unwilling to abide by.
END/UNB/AKM/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
