SHALL WE KILL THE BLUE LADY?

 

 

For a 40-year-old, she’s incredibly attractive. She can catch your eye from afar and there’s a tempting hint of menace to her charms. She’s travelled the world, has been sold for as little as $10 and is now lolling in Indian waters. This is the Blue Lady, a gigantic ship 11-storeys tall, with massive chimneys the sight of which can chill the bones at night. Blue Lady’s vital stats are like this: 291 metres long and 33 metres wide. On 19 January 2006, says the sale deed registered in London (a copy of which is with TSI), the Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd of Bermuda sold her to Liberia’s Bridgend Shipping Ltd for $10. Bridgend then sold her to India’s Priya Blue Shipping Ltd. The Blue Lady ferried asbestos and other toxic material most of her career, and now she is to be broken up.

There lies the rub. Alang is the biggest ship breaking yard in the world and employs the poor who travel mostly from the villages of Orissa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The job is theirs but it’s so risky (what with all the toxic waste in the ships that are broken up) that it can lead to painful death. Blue Lady is a container of 1,240 tons of asbestos and other hazardous material banned in the West. Qamar Rahman, a scientist in Lucknow’s Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, told TSI, “Old ships contain asbestos and other poisonous material detrimental to the health of ship breaking workers. They usually suffer from respiratory ailments and it can get as bad as lung cancer. Exposure to such material is fatal.” The West doesn’t do any of this now so India becomes the world’s dustbin in a way.

Gopal Krishna, a researcher in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University who has filed a PIL in the Supreme Court against Blue Lady, told TSI, “The US and other western countries have stringent environmental laws. The recycling cost is high. Labour is cheap and ignorant in India. So it becomes easy to dump garbage here.” According to some estimates, 50,000 tons of e-waste alone is being brought into India illegally. More than 10 lakh workers are involved in the perilous process of recycling this waste. The job is done mostly through contractors. The working conditions are appalling without safety equipment. Even the government says that 16% of these workers suffer from diseases caused by harmful chemicals. Says P.K. Ganguly, member of the national working committee of the CPI(M)-backed trade union the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), “We are badgering the government to halt these dangerous jobs.” TSI visited the recycling industry incognito in Delhi and Alang (it is not possible for a common man to enter these places), and visited the villages of these workers in UP. According to the International Metalworkers Federation, 60,000 workers are employed in the ship breaking yards of Mumbai and Alang. Hundreds of workers die due to accidents every year and the government acknowledges a death rate of two out of every 1,000 workers a year. Gujarat’s National Institute of Health Organisations accepts the presence of asbestos in the bodies of 16% workers of ship breaking yards. These workers are mostly from the villages of Bihar, UP and Orissa.

Gaura is a tiny village in Gorakhpur, UP, with around 200 homes. Not many have heard of it and people here haven’t heard of things in the outside world either. Most knowledge in Gaura comes from Bollywood movies. Yet, Alang, 1,300 kilometres from Gaura, is a common word in the village. There is no cultural, linguistic or social connection between Gaura and Alang. Still, everyone, from a five-year-old child to an 85-year-old woman, who has never gone out, will recognise the word Alang. The plight of many families in Gaura is somehow related to Alang. In the words of 60-year-old Chain Ram, Alang is a bane.



The numbers

Estimated number of workers involved in e-waste recycling 10 lakh

Total number of workers in ship breaking industry 60,000

Age group 19-45

Estimated number of temporary workers more than 80%.

Skilled labour in ship breaking 64

Number of workers getting salary over Rs 4,000 3%

Number of married workers 85%



Gaura has lost four of its people in Alang. More than 10 people have returned disabled minus arms or legs. More than 15 others have returned in sheer fright. There are villages where one can meet more than 10 Alang widows. Then, there are those who have returned with health problems. Most of the villagers who go to Alang come from lower castes. They don’t have agricultural land or permanent jobs. In the words of Mewa Lal, “Be it Alang or Gorakhpur, we have to work as daily wagers. In Alang one can earn far more than here.” Each village has one or more contractor in Alang, who helps get jobs.

Santosh, one of the four Alang widows of Gaura, is lucky. She is the only one who got compensation for her husband’s death, though after a long legal battle. She says, “The contractor gulped the major part of the compensation.” The other three widows are waiting. Most Alang workers are ‘casual’ and have no employee record. So, most of them are not liable for compensation. An accident can mean loss of job.

Mewa Lal, who worked as a cutter in the ship yard, had both his legs broken in an accident. He had to be admitted in hospital for six months. He never got the job back. Three people died in the accident that injured Mewa Lal. He says, “We don’t know about safety measures. Accidents happen on a daily basis in Alang. Owners use the word chuha (mouse) for the dead. They throw the chuha in the sea to avoid paying compensation.” A victim’s family learns much later when the money orders stop coming.

Mewa Lal is just a name. Change the name and the story is the same. When one listens to these stories, the pain of e-waste and other waste is doubled. Organised mafia brings in e-waste in the form of scrap metal or in the name of charity. They maintain the secrecy of the trade by recycling everything in hideouts. Says Greenpeace researcher Ramapati, “Sometimes the workers stay at the work place. They burn circuits to release the metal and use this fire to prepare food too. This affects health very badly.” TSI met Anwar and Reshma in Seelampur area of East Delhi. This family recycles computers and mobile phones. The only child of the family finds a number of toys in the scrap. He touches them, smells them and at times licks them too. But his parents are ignorant of the danger involved. They tell TSI, “One of our neighbours died of cancer. He was doing the same job.”

Questions remain unanswered and workers continue to die. This will continue until the voracious businessmen and selfish administrators stop importing poison in the form of scrap. The workers will die until the government refuses to bend and orders Blue Lady back.