Oily Issues

The Indian shores particularly the western part of it is in the News again for all the wrong reasons ,of course. Merchant Vessel- Rak capsized some 31 nautical miles off the Mumbai Coast on 3rd August 2011.The Ship is leaking crude at the disastrous rate of about 1 to 2 tons every hour. The high tide coupled with the choppy monsoon conditions hastened the Oil Slick to Juhu , Versova & Madh Islands.
The fishermen community has already sounded alarms and blasted the slow and lackadaisical attitude of the Govt. agencies viz. the ever sleepy Coast Guards and the almost defunct Maharashtra Pollution Control Board.
The Navy which boasts of having acquired sophisticated gadgets over the years has time and again failed to locate the drifting ships or even plug the leaking vessels prompting people to cast apprehensions on these so called security agencies who might well be novices in using /handling the sophisticated arms and security gadgets.
This incident comes barely weeks after the Merchant Vessel – (M.V. WISDOM) which had drifted from the Gulf state of Qatar and settled itself on Juhu beach.
On 7th of August 2010 there was a collision between MSC Chitra and MV Khalijia near Mumbai which destroyed tonnes of precious marine life and uprooted huge tracts of Mangroves so essential to maintain the fragile ecological balance.
There were talks of taking the owners of both the ships along with the captains to task and recover the damages. It is likely that an ‘’OUT OF COURT SETTLEMENT’’ was negotiated and the culprits were allowed to go after greasing the palms of the authorities.

The Navy and the coast guard doesn’t believe in rescue operations but can only indulge and limit itself to salvage operations. They wait aimlessly and shamelessly to let the ‘’event’’ happen and then rush in to clean the muck.
It was evidently known during the rescue operations conducted on M.V. RAK, that the ill fated Vessel was carrying Crude/diesel /coal and impetus should have been given to block the Oil-Slick and restrict it to a limited area.
The callous attitude of all, be it the Govt. agencies, the navy, the Coast Guard and others is deplorable to say the least.
The damages for restoring the partial ecological balance should not only be recovered from the Ships owners involved but also the Coast Guard and the Navy for negligence that defies logic.
It is also quite possible that many ships (mostly registered in Panama) are on their last voyage and are deliberately drifted in this part of the Ocean saving the tugging costs up to Alang -Shipyard in Gujarat, where ships are broken down after its seaworthiness is over. The Ship Owners are fully aware about the lax in intelligence and obsolete security measures prevailing in the region making their task even simpler to carry out.

By the time you read this scores of marine species would have been exterminated from the Arabian sea , the beaches have been rendered unsafe, livelihood of innumerable fishermen has been put at stake and the rapidly dwindling mangroves snuffed off in double quick time, but who cares?
This careless and arrogant attitude coupled with lack of responsibility is primarily responsible for many forgettable incidents that have happened in our Country.