VASCO
A concerted effort by State agencies to avert a possible oil spill from the grounded ship at the Western India Shipyard Ltd dock in the port city was blocked by the Customs which insisted on first completing the paperwork.
The Customs on Saturday reportedly blocked operations by salvaging agencies on the grounded ship at WISL on grounds that they did not obtain clearance to conduct activity on a foreign ship.
According to reports, officials of disaster management, GSPCB, other stakeholders and the representatives of Trinity, the company that chartered the grounded ship, were in a hurry to pump out the water and the 350 tonnes of oil from the grounded ship on Saturday. The salvaging team wanted to avoid any marine pollution due to the oil spillage from the vessel which listed and subsequently ran aground on Thursday.
However, operations had to be kept on hold as necessary permissions were not obtained from the Customs.
Officials of the Mercantile Marine Department (MMD) on Saturday evening visited the yard to check if there was any oil leakage from the grounded ship.
Speaking to The Goan, Trinity official Sunil Prabhu said they could not carry out operations to pump out the water and oil from the ship on Saturday.
“The Customs did not allow us to go ahead without taking necessary clearance from them,” he said.
“Through the MPT officials, we had moved a letter to the Customs to grant permission to take the machinery to pump out the water and oil from the ship. Hopefully, the process will start from Sunday,” said Prabhu.
Asked to justify the need to get approval from Customs when the MPT had already allowed them to carry out salvaging operations, Prabhu replied: “The MV Qing is a foreign ship and as per Customs rule, a company has to take prior permission to salvage any foreign ship and needs passes from the Customs to take salvaging machinery inside the port.”
When asked why these rules had not been anticipated by the company, Prabhu said the their priority was to pump out the oil from the ship to avoid any marine pollution which could lead to a disaster.
“A letter has already been sent through the port officials to the Customs and operations are expected to start from Sunday,” he said.
An official of MMD added that it was most urgent to pump out oil from the ship and the operations could not be delayed any further.
“Around 10,000 tonnes of seawater has entered the hull and other parts of the ship. All this seawater needs to be pumped out first, before attempts are made to pump out the oil,” the MMD official said.
“While pumping the water out, the salvaging personnel should use two submersible pumps, one on the port side and the other on the starboard side, to avoid listing of the ship on any one side, which could prove to be dangerous.”
“The water should be pumped out from both sides simultaneously to keep the ship steady. After the water is pumped out, we can then ascertain from which tank the oil should be pumped out first,” the official added.
It may be recalled the MPT Chairman I Jayakumar had told The Goan on Friday that salvaging operations would start on Saturday from 11 am onwards.
