The Indian government has drawn up plans to double shipbreaking capacity by 2024 at the recycling yard at Alang in the western Indian state of Gujarat, a government official said on Tuesday, February 16.
The official said that the capacity of the world’s largest shipbreaking yard at Alang will be doubled by adding 15 new plots to its existing 153 yards where shipbreaking operations are currently done. He said that, even though there are 153 yards for shipbreaking, only about 48 percent of the plots are currently used for shipbreaking, and the plans include facilitating bringing in more vessels from Europe and Japan for more utilizations of new and spare yards available at Alang.
According to government data, in the 2011-12 fiscal year 415 ships aggregating 3.85 million light displacement tonnage (weight of ship without cargo and fuel) had arrived at Alang - the only year when its full capacity of 4.5 million LDT was utilized.
In the 2019-20 fiscal year, 202 ships of 1.62 million LDT arrived at Alang, and in FY 2020-21 (April-January) 199 vessels of 1.8 million LDT arrived at the shipbreaking yard.