How India's shipbreaking industry is ceding ground to its rivals

First Post

24-05-2025

If Alang and its sister ports in Gujarat fail to modernise infrastructure, the upcoming surge in ship recycling will likely shift eastward to Bangladesh or westward to Pakistan and Turkey—resulting in a significant loss of both revenue and relevance read more
In the salt-swept dusk of Gujarat's Saurashtra coast stands Alang, where the world's mightiest vessels came for their final farewell. Alang now waits. A decade ago, along the fourteen kilometres of beach, 415 behemoths of steel were cut, plate by plate, in 2011 alone. This year, owners say barely a hundred hulls will arrive.
What was India's proud industrial frontier now rattles along at less than a fifth of its capacity. The scrap metal that once fed India's insatiable hunger for steel now drifts instead to the muddy flats of Chattogram in Bangladesh, in Karachi in Pakistan and, increasingly, to newer yards in Aliaga in Turkey.
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Where 35,000 labourers poured in each dawn, perhaps 15,000 remain, many uncertain when the next ship will come. Shipbreaking's share in India's crude steel supply has slipped from 5 per cent to below 1 per cent, thinning a crucial layer of our circular economy. And yet Alang's decline is not inevitable; it is a pause – critical, yes, but decisively reversible.
A World in Flux
Global shipping has been bent out of its usual rhythm. 'Shadow fleets' necessitated by the sanctions on Russia and Iran keep geriatric tankers trading longer than economics once allowed. The Red Sea's Houthi turbulence has lengthened routes, handing even creaking vessels a fresh lease on profitability. With scrap supply tight, cash buyers scour beaches for the best price. Chattogram's brokers dangle 40-50 US dollars more per light-displacement tonne than India can currently match.
Why? Because while Indian recyclers have cleared the high bar of green compliance, building modern yards that meet the standards of the Hong Kong Convention and even more applying for European Union Ship Recycling Regulation (EU-SRR) compliance, Bangladesh continues to rely on low-cost, low-tech beaching. There, ships are deliberately grounded during high tide and dismantled directly on the shore, allowing oil, sludge, and other effluents to wash away with the tide.
The advantage is clear: lower compliance costs, cheaper labour, and minimal environmental enforcement. In effect, Bangladesh is leveraging regulatory arbitrage to offer $40–$50 more per light displacement tonne (LDT), drawing business away from India despite having fewer and less equipped yards.
Governance Knots, Not Market Fate
One long-standing issue at Alang has been the lack of uniform yard sizes, which has limited operational efficiency and made it harder to attract larger vessels. To address this, the Gujarat Maritime Board announced 28 new, standardised plots in 2022 as part of a modernisation push. Two years on, however, there's been little movement with no tenders, no timelines, and no visible progress. The plan remains stalled on paper, even as a wave of global recycling demand approaches.
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Then there is the quieter but more damaging blockade in the Bureau of Indian Standards' own rulebook. Since 2012, BIS has withheld IS-1786 certification for reinforcement bars rolled from ship scrap, citing inconsistent chemical composition across global hulls. This, despite metallurgical studies led by the Ministry of Steel and industry consortia showing that the steel meets or exceeds all mechanical strength benchmarks.
In the absence of certification, recyclers are forced to sell Cold Twisted Deformed (CTD) bars into the informal market, where they're used in low-end construction. As a result, they lose access to the more lucrative TMT (Fe550 and above) segment, cutting off a vital revenue stream that could otherwise finance further modernisation.
Finally, hazardous waste processing limps. Alang's single licensed facility, run by Gujarat Enviro Protection & Infrastructure Ltd (GEPIL), is chronically oversubscribed. A proposal to double its capacity was lodged in 2021 and is still stalled amid procedural loops. For yards courting European clients, each week of delay means a possible lost contract and another ocean liner bowing on the shores of Bangladesh.
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Intent on Paper, Urgency in the Wind
It would be unfair to say the Union government is unaware of these challenges. Maritime India Vision 2030, spearheaded by Prime Minister Modi, explicitly aims to make India the world's leading ship recycling destination by the end of the decade. India already ranks second globally, and it played a key role in pushing the Hong Kong Convention across the finish line, with its ratification helping trigger the treaty's enforcement set for mid-2025. Senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office have reportedly engaged with industry stakeholders on Alang's bottlenecks, and both the shipping and steel ministries privately recognise the need for coordinated reform.
The development of transitioning nations and their industries is rarely linear. It moves in bursts, often driven by political will. India now stands at the edge of one such inflection point. Between 2026 and 2035, analysts project that up to 15,000 ships will be retired, signalling a long-awaited recycling boom. But if Alang and its sister ports in Gujarat fail to modernise infrastructure, the upcoming surge in ship recycling will likely shift eastward to Bangladesh or westward to Pakistan and Turkey—resulting in a significant loss of both revenue and relevance.
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Four Levers for a Fast Revival
1. Free the Steel
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) should permit ISI certification for ship-recycled steel based on the successful six-month trials already conducted. Allowing its use in formal construction would open access to the high-margin TMT segment, unlocking profits that can be reinvested into modernising yards and scaling capacity.
2. Expand Hazardous Waste Throughput
The long-pending clearance for GEPIL's capacity expansion must be fast-tracked on the same priority footing as renewable energy projects. Without this, even compliant yards are stalled, losing valuable contracts due to documentation delays and insufficient waste-handling capacity.
3. Auction the 28 New Plots
Despite the current global fall in ship supply, industry players are ready to invest in the 28 new plots announced in 2022. A transparent, time-bound auction would send a strong signal of intent and ensure India is ready before the recycling surge begins post-2026.
4. Build a National Recycling Grid
Ports like Paradip, Tuticorin, and Haldia already have steel and petrochemical ecosystems in place. With modest investment, they can be developed to handle medium-scale ship recycling. This decentralisation reduces dependency on Alang, spreads economic benefits, and anchors shipbreaking in India's broader blue economy and job-creation strategy.
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A Story Bharat Wants to Hear
Every 10,000-tonne vessel recycled in India saves roughly 15,000 tonnes of CO₂ compared to primary steel, employs 250 workers for six months, and recovers critical metals otherwise imported. Framed well, revival is a patriotic project: winning back cargoes that now beach in Karachi is a victory achieved not through gunfire but by efficiency and conscience. It strengthens New Delhi's claim to leadership at COP 30 and feeds Atmanirbhar Bharat's hunger for raw materials.
The Horizon, Within Reach
Walk Alang's tide line today and you still sense a latent energy: the hum of oxy-fuel torches, the careful ballet of cranes lifting thousand-tonne sections, the aroma of midday chai cut by sea salt. The men who perform this choreography need only certainty – of steel buyers, of waste infrastructure, and of government timelines kept rather than deferred.
India has, at times, surprised the world (and itself) with the speed of its pivots – think of the UPI digital-payments network or the vaccine rollout. Shipbreaking, leaner in scale, demands far less public outlay, yet offers an outsized dividend in jobs, strategic metals, and global credibility.
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However, the window is narrow: perhaps two years before the surge in decommissioning peaks. But windows, once noticed, can be flung wide. A BIS notification here, a Cabinet Secretariat nudge there, and Saurashtra's coast can start humming again – this time cleaner, safer, and emblematic of a nation that converts intent into industry.
Kanishq Agarwal is a strategy consultant who advises senior political leaders on campaigns, communication and policy. Aryaman Sharma (X: @AryamanBharat) is an analyst working at the intersection of manufacturing, economic policy, and national strategy. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.