Govt agencies caught napping

R C Pal, park director, admits as much. “It is a little unnerving because we are very poorly equipped to do anything in the event of a major oil spill. At a time when all the government agencies and oil companies should be having state-of-the-art crisis management equipment, we still depend on others”, he says.

The Gulf of Kutch, with the country’s two important ports — Vadinar and Kandla — has become a very busy stretch of the sea, with a five-fold increase in the movement of cargo ships over the last five years. Many of these ships are tankers, carrying millions of tonnes of crude oil. It is these tankers which pose the greatest danger to the marine park.

“Each tanker is a moving threat,” says a senior port officer. “Although safety at sea is very high compared to any other mode of transport and no major accident has occurred till now, just one major accident will be enough to destroy this coastal area,” he explains.

Even a Gujarat Maritime Board official, who argues that chances of collision of tankers are remote, admits that “we cannot rule out big oil spills at SBMs (single buoy moorings), leakage from pipelines and other spills occurring at sea. And we still don’t have a foolproof system in place to detect oil spills in time.”

Sums up Port Officer S K Kotak: “When we are handling one million tonnes of crude oil every month, minor accidents are bound to happen. But it is the possibility of major spills that is worrisome.” Yet none of the state government agencies, including the Forest Department, which is in charge of the marine park, the pollution control board, the district administration or the port authorities have the necessary equipment and expertise to tackle oil spills.

“Only the Kandla Port Trust, IOCL and the Coast Guard have proper equipment to attend to an emergency,” says Pal. But there is a lack of coordination between the various agencies. Incidentally, the state’s Disaster Management Force consists of 21 agencies, including the fire brigade and state intelligence bureau, which have no idea of emergencies like oil spills.

An Indian Oil Corporation official also emphasises the need for proper co-ordination, saying that “reaction time is stretched beyond repair” when coordination is lacking. In the Gulf of Kutch, SBMs are only four to five kms in the sea and crude carriers pass less then six kms from the coast. With strong water currents and high wind velocity, the average reaction time available is not more than one hour. “And if the spill happens at night, you will notice it only after it has played havoc with the coastline,” a Forest Deparment officer says.