Although the Gujarat government has set up a separate Inspectorate of Factories at Alang ship-breaking yard under its Industrial Health and Hygiene (IH&H) Department to enforce safety provisions, two more fatal accidents have been reported from the world’s largest ship-breaking yard in the last one month.

The recent incident that occurred on the 1st June on Plot 15 of the ship-breaking yard involved a labourer identified as Ayodhyasingh Rajput (35). Rajput was a native of Jharkhand and was employed by a

local company named Chantivala Contractor.

The authorities have confirmed that the incident bore resemblance to yet another fatal accident that occurred at Plot 24 D in May. In both the cases, workers died when the crane’s rope carrying big steel plates cut from discarded ships broke and fell on them.

And this, when the ship-breaking industry is one of the few sectors that have benefited from the global economic meltdown. The ship price per tonne has fallen to $250 in a year from the high of $750 in June 2008, indicating a fall of nearly 60 per cent. On the other hand, steel prices have fallen by only 40 per cent resulting in a good margin for ship-breakers. And with nearly 25 to 30 vessels hitting Alang shores every month, the ship-breakers are minting money like never before.

But even in this boom, Alang witnessed its first major workers’ strike around two months back. Alang yard employs close to 15,000 workers mainly in the unorganized sector. A large number of these workers are migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand and continue to live in hutments, with no provision of clean drinking water and electricity.

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