Ship Recycling In India – Regulatory Framework

India being one of the world's largest ship recycling industries has acceded to the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships ("Convention"). This Convention aims at ensuring that recycling of ships that have reached the end of their operational lives do not pose any unnecessary risk to human health and safety or to the environment. India, being a member state and having acceded to the said Convention, the Government of India has recently enacted the Recycling of Ships Act, 2019 ("Act"). The Act aims lay down regulatory framework to the ship recycling industry by setting certain standards and statutory mechanism for enforcement of such standards and other related matters. Key highlights of the Act with respect to ship recycling are as follows: