Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan

 

 

Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan

 

favours setting up of a

 

Corpus Fund to fight oil spills

 

Union Minister for Environment & Forests, Ms. Jayanti Natarajan has favoured setting up of a Corpus Fund to aid quick response to fight oil spills off the Indian coast. In recent past there have been frequent incidences of crude oil leakages from breakdown of ships, leakage from pipelines operated by oil companies in west coast.  The Minister held wide ranging consultations with all stakeholders in Mumbai and reviewed the status of present safety systems adopted by concerned agencies.

Addressing a press conference after the two hour long meeting, Ms Natarajan said that the cleaning operation after the oil spills, often got delayed due to lack of clarity about who would fund it. She said, a corpus fund would come in handy under such circumstances and the cleaning up operation could begin immediately, thereby limiting damage to  the environment.  The outgo from the fund would be reimbursed once the compensation liability is established and claims settled.

The Minister said “this is a good proposal, the corpus size and the pattern of funding will be finalized after holding consultations with stakeholders and discussing the matter with the Prime Minister”. Ms. Natarajan said the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board had some experience  in this regard, acquired while dealing with multiple oil slicks during 2010. She said the Maharashtra model will be studied further.

Ms. Natarajan informed that as many as 40 ships were stranded at different places off the Indian coast, but assured that there is no immediate danger from these ships. She said the Shipping Authorities have been monitoring the entry and exit of ships in Indian waters by following well laid out guidelines. The Minister however insisted for strong environmental laws to deal with shipping vessels that damage India’s fragile coastal eco-system, including provisions for establishing criminal liability.

Ms Natarajan also asked the Central Pollution Control Board and the State Pollution Control Boards to review the status of existing pipeline networks at major ports to identify vulnerable areas that would need replacement or upgradation. She also asked the oil companies to upgrade their existing pipelines with monitoring systems like SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) to regularly monitor the health of pipelines. She stressed that environmental measures for control of pollution in handling materials in ports should be strictly followed.

Senior officers of Ministry of Environment & Forest, Department of Environment, Government of Maharashtra, DG Shipping, Mumbai Port Trust and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Indian Coast Guards, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and ONGC etc participated in the meeting.