Team Herald
VASCO: While the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) is getting readied to rebid the shipyard outsourced to Western India Shipyard Limited, the latter has assured to salvage the grounded floating dry dock as well as cruise liner MV QING post monsoon after initiating precautionary measures during the rains.
According to MPT Chairman I Jeyakumar, following a notice from Collector South Goa to Western India Shipyard Limited (WISL) management, the WISL officials arrived in Goa and held meeting with the MPT officials and it was decided to salvage both the grounded vessels at WISL yard including floating dry dock as well as grounded Cruise liner MV QING only after monsoons. He said that such decision was taken as monsoons is fast approaching and carrying out such works during monsoons might be risky and also the work requires lots of precautions.
“Now the floating dry dock has already touched the sea bed and is stable. Only about 100 litres of diesel is present in a generator onboard the dry dock (generator presently above the sea water level). It has to be removed on priority to prevent any oil spill. WISL has assured that they would remove the diesel and once this is removed then there would not be any problem of oil spill,” Jeyakumar said.
He further added that “As there is no immediate danger of pollution from the grounded vessels, it was decided that attempts to salvage the dry dock as the cruise liner after monsoons which is on the door step. If we try to salvage the floating dry dock now then we would not be in position to complete the works before monsoons and if we try to refloat the dry dock and if there is any misbalance then the dry dock might fall on MV QING which is grounded close to the floating dry dock and contains 350 tonnes of oil. Besides that there are other technical issues due to which the immediate salvage operation could be treated as unsafe and might create additional problem. Our idea is to complete the task of salvaging both the vessels before December this year or by January next year,” he said.
Commenting on MPTs attempt to rebid the shipyard outsourced to WISL, Jeyakumar said “The lease agreement with WISL would get over by 2018 and as there is no business there we have decided to issue fresh lease tender for WISL yard so that the new bidder can come and take over the yard as earliest. Even the issue of present situation at WISL was discussed with Union Minister for Shipping Nitin Gadkari who is in Goa and he has also expressed his concerns about the issue and mainly on pollution aspects. Also Gadkari-ji has asked us to expedite the bidding process so that business in the yard can again become active”.
Jeyakumar further claimed that, to control any oil spill, MPT has already placed two layers of booms around the dry dock as well as MV QING. He said that MPT would also monitor the situation round the clock by deploying officers on daily basis. “We have decided to monitor the situation at the WISL yard very closely. Our staff would give us report every four hours and this will continue until salvage operations commences after monsoons”, he said.
