Ministry ready with proposals to reduce marine casualties

India has decided to focus on bringing down marine casualties along its coast with a series of measures...

India has decided to focus on bringing down marine casualties along its coast with a series of measures, including creation of a Marine Emergency Relief Fund, to ensure timely response and relief to accident-hit vessels. A committee of experts, formed in July 2007 by the Ministry of Shipping to help reduce marine casualties, submitted its report recently. The report has recommended a host of measures like phasing out ageing vessels and setting up of an emergency fund. The proposal will soon be presented before the cabinet for its approval.

There has been an alarming increase in the number of marine casualties across Indian waters. From 37 ship casualties in 2005, the figure rose to 231 in 2007. The danger of losing ships is greater during monsoon with 68 casualties reported in 2007 during the rainy season. Of the 301 ship casualties reported along the Indian coast over the last three years (2005-07), 102 occurred during monsoon season and in 95 cases the mishap led to the loss of the ship. Also, of the 29 vessels lost in the last three monsoons, 65 per cent were 25-year-old ships and 50 per cent were lost due to machinery breakdown. Thus, ageing vessels need to be phased out.

The ministry’s proposal includes issuance of directives regularly to reduce incidence of older vessels in Indian waters, vest responsibility for co-ordination of marine emergency response on Director General of Shipping, create a Marine Emergency Fund with an initial corpus of Rs 24 crore. The fund will be operated by the DG and will address the needs of the victims of ship accidents, like minimum hospitalisation costs of seafarers involved, payment of ex-gratia to fishermen who lose their nets, and costs of urgent salvage coordination requirements.

The committee has drawn up a Marine Disaster Prevention & Response Plan to reduce maritime casualties and the ministry has accepted all its recommendations and is of the opinion that these measures must be in place by next monsoon. The committee has also proposed several preventive measures to impose restrictions on the age of ships plying, inspections of older vessels through state port control, drawing up sea links for better vessel traffic management, augmentation of Coast Guard capacities for patrolling, designating places of refuge for ships in distress, installation of vessel traffic management systems for better navigation. To ensure timely salvage services for wrecked ships, the ministry has proposed to acquire four to six powerful tugs or emergency towage vessels (ETVs) and more specifically for oil carriers and oil exploration installations around the coast, as accidents here can lead to oil spills.