Slipping on oil

India has a coastline that is 7,600 km long, yet it conspires to appear clueless about the dangers of oil spills on the high seas. Worse, it is badly equipped to handle such occurrences in terms of contingency plans and equipment. As this newspaper has reported, it took a full 11 hours for the Goa government, the Coast Guard and the Marmagao Port Trust to even react to the major oil spill caused by a collision off the Candolim-Sinquerim beach last Wednesday. This is an unconscionable delay at a crucial point in the management of a disaster of this kind.

There is really no need to reiterate that slicks — caused this time by a spill of an estimated 110 metric tons of heavy fuel oil — pose a grave threat to a fragile coastal environment. Not only is Goa home to thriving fishing activity, it is also crucially dependent on tourism, both of which are badly affected by such developments. Indisputably, handling oil spills in an environmentally friendly manner is an expensive business, but this only makes forward planning more imperative. India could, in fact, learn from Southeast Asian nations, like Malaysia, which has an oil spill contingency plan in place involving various agencies from the fisheries department and banking services to the meteorological department, the air force and navy. The plan incorporates the services of area coordinators to carry out investigations and take steps to mitigate the oil spill, on-scene commanders deputed to reach the site of the spill, beach clean-up coordinators who are responsible for mopping up operations and getting information across to the public.

India needs to get its act together on managing oil spills. The Arabian Sea that straddles peninsular India is the major site of international oil tanker routes originating from the Persian Gulf. Annually, over 2,500 tankers criss-cross these waters and this traffic is only going to grow in the years ahead. Oil spills potentially come with this territory. Which only means that we can no longer afford to sit on our hands and watch as a crisis of this kind washes up on our shores.