India Has the World’s Largest Ship Graveyard in Gujarat

July 24, 2017: Ships have a life. Does it sound peculiar to you? After you get down from the wonderful journey you probably never think about the ship again, however, ships also have an existence cycle, similarly as we do. Alang in Gujarat has the biggest ship graveyard on the planet where voluminous tankers and luxury ships are rejected on the Alang shore front. Here, things are distinctive and it notices a greater amount of old things than newly composed ones.

A Ship graveyard is a place where ships are sent to be decomposed.

Ship graveyards are the ones that are made particularly for decomposition of the ship. Alang has a 10 km long coastline where ship breaking is done. The First ship was brought here in 1983 and from that point onwards 6,900 ships have been disassembled there.

Despite the fact that 60% of the world's aggregate ship breaking is done in Alang, the place has seen lots of ups and down. From being the focal point of the world where ships were to be sent, it is left behind now with scarcely any work.

This recycling industry is valued at 6,000 crores. In the year 2010-2011, they had utilized 20,000 laborers and generated more than a lakh employments. The ships that once rode the high oceans ended up on the shores of Alang. With the passage of time, the oil-drenched shoreline looks infertile, with just a couple of ships dotting the skyline, their rusted anchors, and chains is an evidence of a shoreline that once cut down hulks.

Ships that once carried many vacationers to exquisite areas and carried voyages to far-flung ports are among the vessels from all the world that have wound up on Alang's shores post the termination of working lives. They are scrapped for their steel which can be sold for use in development.

Alang's shoreline as a ship breaking yard benefitted from this labor-intensive exercise of crushing these vessels. Such work can be carried out in nations with cheap labor and lesser restrictions in terms of dealing with hazardous substances, for example, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

Japan and the Gujarat government have held hands to redesign the current Alang ship breaking yard. This is a part of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor, a venture between the Japanese and Gujarat government. The venture's point is to make this shipyard the biggest International Maritime Organization-compliant recycling shipyard in the world.

– prepared by Naina Mishra of Newsgram. Twitter @Nainamishr94