DG, Shipping to send experts to fish out ship

Director General of Shipping, Mumbai will send a four-member expert team to Paradip port on 7th April to provide technical support to the port administration for dismantling the wreckage of Black Rose ship which had sunk in the Bay of Bengal in September 2009.

The team will include M.V.Ramamurthy, president (shipping) with Reliance Industries Ltd, S.K. Das, deputy nautical advisor, Tuny Fernadese, a maritime lawyer and Gauri Prasad Biswal, deputy conservator of Paradip Port Trust, said the sources.

The team will visit Paradip on 7th April and interact with the port authorities as well as Jagatsinghpur distract administration about the salvage operation. After discussions, the team would visit the sunken ship site.

The Mongolian cargo ship MV Black Rose was carrying 23,847 tonne of iron ore fines and 920 tonne furnace oil when it developed a hole in its oil tank and sank near Paradip port.

The port authorities spent Rs 17.5 crores to pump out the spilled oil, but the ship is still lying on the sea bed as neither the PPT nor the Mongolian ship owners showed interest to dismantle the wreckage.

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed by secretary of Peoples Union of Civil Liberties (Orissa), Guru Prasad Mohanty before the Orissa High Court seeking direction to the Jagatsinghpur district collector to act as the receiver of the wreck and take responsibility to fish out the sunken vessel.

The court has decided to monitor the salvage operation and directed the collector to submit a status report within four weeks.

The district administration, after the court order, had sought the cooperation and technical support of Union Ministry of Shipping, PPT, Sate Pollution Control Board and Indian Coast Guard for the salvage operation.

It had formed an environmental coordination committee led by collector Narayan Chandra Jena.

The committee had requested DG, Shipping, Mumbai to send experts to provide guidance for this operation.

The removal of the shipwreck was necessary for the safety of ships and other vessels coming to Paradip port.

Also, environmentalists feared that the presence of shipwreck would affect breeding of rare Olive Ridley turtles in the Bay of Bengal.

They pointed out that the non-removal of ship may change the sand movement and affect the shoreline near Mahanadi River Mouth at Nehru Bangla.