The Bombay high court has directed the Directorate General of Shipping to salvage stranded ships Pratibha Tapi and Pratibha Indrayani by roping in a salvage company. However, the huge cost to carry out the salvage operations for the two merchant vessels is only going to add to the troubles of the DG Shipping, which is yet to clear the money incurred during the salvage operation of merchant vessel Pavit which had landed on the Juhu coast in July 2011.
Incidentally, MV Pavit was a 77-metre-long, 1,000-ton ship as compared to the Pratibha Tapi, which is a 175-metre-long, 24,000 ton vessel. A senior official from DG Shipping on Tuesday confirmed that MV Pavit could not be sold even after a few auctions took place and the DG Shipping still owes the salvors money.
Only a scrap dealer had come forward to buy MV Pavit, but the cost offered by him is nowhere compared to the cost incurred in its salvage operation and the subsequent maintenance. The salvage company had even served a notice to DG Shipping to reimburse their money.
Gautam Chatterjee, director general, Shipping on Tuesday confirmed that the Pratibha Tapi has lost all its certificates and would be scrapped. However, Mr Chatterjee added that the 25-year-old Tapi could be “refurbished” and put to auction to recover the money of its salvage operation. The owner of both the ships, Sunil Pawar, had earlier declared that he was bankrupt.
Interestingly, Mr Chatt-erjee’s predecessor Mr Satish Agnihotri had stated in August 2011, that they would draft a bill for a new law in continuance of the Nairobi International Convention on Removal of Wrecks, 2007 which could be used in a situation where a vessel poses a threat to navigation or marine life.
When asked about the law, Mr Chatterjee replied, “No bill has been drafted,” The DG Shipping now wants the state government to invoke the Disaster Management Act, which is a state law. The law is vital as there are thousands of such vessels that land on the Indian coast and there is no separate stringent law to deal with them.