Indian Court Decides Whether to Allow Vessel to be Shipped to Country

The India Supreme Court Monitoring Committee is expected to make a final decision on Feb. 13 whether or not the decommissioned French warship Clemenceau should enter India to be scrapped at the Asia's largest ship scrap yard in Gujarat's Alang district.

So far, the Monitoring Committee has said that if the ship violates the Basel Convention, then it will have to go back.

Following strong protests by environmentalists both in India and in France over allowing the ship to dock at Alang in Gujarat to be dismantled, the Supreme Court had fixed February 13 for hearing the matter after recording an assurance given by the Shipping Decommissioning Industry Corp., a Panama registered company.

The company had assured it would not permit Clemenceau to enter the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone until the court took a decision on the basis of the SCMC report.

The French Government claims that there is only 45 metric tons of asbestos left on board, not removable till dismantling since it is part of the ship's structure.

The SCMC earlier in its preliminary report had recommended that the Clemenceau should not be allowed to enter India's Exclusive Economic Zone since it would amount to violation of the provisions of the Basel Convention.

The Basel Convention a global treaty initiated by the United Nations Environment Programme, is focused on controlling the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes apart from promoting environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes.

On January 9, the Supreme Court had forbidden the ship to enter Indian waters as most of its directions issued almost a year ago had gone unheeded. The Times of India