- (1.) A short question which arises for determination in this IA is whether this Court should grant permission for dismantling of the ship "Blue Lady" at Alang, Gujarat.
(2.) The "Blue Lady" ex SS Norway was a passenger liner built at Chantier De Altantic, St. Nazaire, France in 1961. It was a steam turbine driven vessel with a power and rating of 30,000 KW and 40,760 HP respectively. Now the vessel is registered as a Barge under the flag of Bahamas vide official number 710763. The vessel is very luxurious in it's kind and many dignitaries like President of America, Queen of England have travelled during it's golden period. The said ship was beached on 15/16.8.2006 off the Alang coast. The said ship was the passenger ship. It was constructed in 1952. It originated from France. Its last origin was from Norway. The ship is about 291 mt. long. It is 34 mt. wide. It has the capacity of 45886 MT. It has 16 floors. It has 1400 rooms for passengers accommodation. It has restaurant, cinema, health club and free shopping complex.
(3.) Alang is located on the west coast of Gujarat. It is the largest ship recycling yard in the world. It is one of the choicest ship-scrapping destination for the ship owners around the world. There are 183 plots in all to carry out the ship recycling activities. Till today Alang has provided approximately 23 million tonnes of steel in the last 10 years. On 17.2.2006 when the above writ petition came up for hearing before this Court, we found the controversy concerning ship-breaking a recurring controversy. Therefore, this Court decided to lay down norms concerning infrastructure, capacity of Alang to handle large volume of ship-breaking activity, safeguards to be provided to the workers who were likely to face health- hazard on account of the incidence of ship-breaking activity, the environmental impact assessment, regulation of the said activity and strict regulation of the said activity. Accordingly, this Court constituted a Committee of Technical Experts to submit a report on the aforestated aspects.;