GMB officials and ship breakers also raised issues pertaining to prior decontamination of ships that are diverted for recycling and said that decontamination be made the responsibility of ship owners.

Raising these issues with the IMO delegation, led by its chairman Nicholos Mikelies visiting Alang ship breaking yard on Monday, GMB officials and ship breakers pointed out that India suffered huge economic losses as the ships were diverted to other countries where there was hardly any compliance to international rules on safety, health and environment.

India, they argued, complied to all Indian rules as well as international regulations regarding safety, health and environment. The visiting IMO team was taken around the ship recycling facilities, including asbestos waste removal system. It was also informed about 14,000 labourers having been trained in safety measures and hazardous waste management viewpoint.

The IMO visit comes as it prepares for a Ship Recycling Convention, an international law for safe and environmentally sound management of ship recycling, so that all countries could undertake ship recycling on uniform basis. In this regard, IMO has so far conducted two seminars— one in turkey and another in China. The third one began in Mumbai on January 7 and will continue till January 10.

According to GMB officials, the visit would help the stakeholders and policy makers to form clear perspective of their positions in relation to the draft IMO convention and also to communicate their needs and concerns to the invited international speakers so as to facilitate the development of the international convention.

Officials said that the convention will be adopted by the diplomatic conference to be held in Hong Kong in April 2009. There is very limited opportunity for developing the draft convention further and for resolving the issues concerning ship recycling, the officials added.

As far as India is concerned, GMB officials told IMO that the Supreme Court had already issued necessary directions for undertaking safe and environmentally sound ship recycling in India.