It’s official: Asbestos is crippling Alang workers

New Delhi, September 5 : For the first time, an official committee has acknowledged that asbestos is taking its toll on the ship-breakers in Alang, Gujarat, and what’s needed are sweeping reforms in their working conditions and detailed guidelines for dismantling ships and handling the waste.

The report says that almost one in six workers (16% of the workforce that handles asbestos) could be suffering from an early stage of asbestosis, an irreversible lung condition that could lead to lung cancer. In addition to this, the report highlights how the “fatal accident rate” in Alang is almost six times that in the mining industry, considered to be the most unsafe.

Set up by the Supreme Court last February — while it was hearing the Clemenceau case — the 12-member Committee of Technical Experts, headed by Prodipto Ghosh, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, has submitted its 200-page report to the Supreme Court last week.

Though there have been several committees on Alang, this is the first one that says that ship-breaking can — and should — be conducted in an “environmentally sound’’ manner following augmentation and upgradation of facilities.

According to the report, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, the experts have rolled out a detailed roadmap for upgrading the Alang shipyard operations and have highlighted alarming facts related to exposure to asbestos. Until now, the Government has denied any such link.

The committee commissioned the Delhi-based National Institute of Occupational Health to carry out a study of the health status of ship-breaking workers in Alang, specially those engaged in removal of asbestos. Besides radiological examinations, NIOH examined health records of workers available with Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health (Gujarat).

“The X-ray examination showed linear shadow on 15 of 94 workers occupationally exposed to asbestos, These were consistent with asbestosis but could be caused by other lung conditions. All of these were cases of easly asbestosis and not associated with pulmonary function abnormalities’’.

Most of these workers had worked for less than 10 years. Normally, it takes more than 10 years for full-blown asbestosis to develop but its onset is hastened with higher levels of exposure. In ships brought for breaking, free asbestos is usually present as thermal insulation of boilers and floor tiles. When this asbestos is removed, its particles become air-borne and attack the lungs.

Based on these findings, the report calls for further investigation of the cases and careful follow-up with High-Resolution Computerised...

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