September 11, 2008	Thursday	Ramazan 10, 1429

KARACHI, Sept 10: As the city’s ports witnessed two ships running aground in a week, background interviews with shippers and the authorities concerned suggest that apart from inadequate dredging of the channel, the wrecks of more than half a dozen ships, sunken in Pakistani waters for more than three decades, are also obstructing the movement of vessels.

Sources in the shipping business told Dawn that the wreckage of some seven ships, which had been in Pakistani waters for 30 years, was causing hindrance for the vessels moving towards the port for anchorage.

Brief discussions with officials of the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) also confirmed this fact, as they said that the authorities had already taken up the issue and efforts were being made to remove such wrecks from the channel.

“Out of the seven sunken ships, cutting and removing work of four wrecks is in progress and more than 50 per cent work has been completed on each wreck,” said a spokesman for the KPT.

However, the KPT official did not come up with a time-frame for the operation, while shippers say that the issue has been raised several times with the authorities concerned but in vain. The KPT spokesman went on to say that the Trust first had taken up four shipwrecks to be removed and it would decide further about the rest once the job was completed.

“Three salvaging firms are involved in the (salvage) operation. Once they complete their present task, they will be considered for the remaining salvage work,” he added, without elaborating the deadline set for the current contract.

Though the KPT officials denied that the wrecks of sunken ships were creating hurdles in the movement of vessels, shippers sounded concerned over the issue and said apart from many other reasons, the presence of such huge structures in the port channel always posed a threat to shipping traffic.

“There is no doubt that they (the wrecks) obstruct vessels’ movement,” said Mohammad Farrukh Qaiser, former chairman All Pakistan Shipping Association (APSA). “I don’t exactly know the number of such sunken ships but we are aware of the fact that there are several such wrecks, which have been a source of concern for the whole industry.”

First a container ship that ran aground outside the Karachi Port was salvaged after more than eight hours. The KPT rescued the ship carrying 1,777 containers with 21 crew members to Nhava Sheva, near Mumbai and claimed the incident took place after the pilot had guided the vessel safely outside the approach channel of the harbour and at the outer anchorage.

A few days later another foreign vessel faced the same situation at Port Qasim and took more than six hours before leaving for its next destination. Though the two incidents did not set alarm bells ringing with the quarters concerned for dredging of the channels, the shippers fear that they should be an eye-opener for the authorities concerned.

“As per international practices, dredging should be conducted every year,” said Mr Qaiser. “But here we witnessed the last dredging operation some four years back, which is not enough considering the marine environment of the region. We have raised such issues several times before the authorities but it has been of no use.”

Meanwhile, sources told Dawn the government, in 2002, attempted to remove the wrecks of the seven sunken ships by engaging the services of ship-breakers and exempted them from payment of duties for buying such wreckage.

“Under the Pakistan Custom Tariff, the rate of custom duty for breaking up of a vessel and other floating structure was 10 per cent ad valorem at that time (2002),” said a source citing records at the Collectorate of Customs. “But the incentive from the government failed to attract ship-breakers, who avoided getting involved in such a risky business.”