Mysterious "Pavit" to be auctioned?

The mysterious MT Pavit- the ship that drifted onto the popular Juhu beach in the city in the end of July unnoticed by India's much vaunted three tier security cordon- may be put under the hammer later this month. This is to try to recover at least part of the costs incurred by Indian agencies after the grounding. Unfortunately, it appears that the cost of salvage operations, combined with other port charges, have mounted beyond what the ship is worth. The Great Offshore salvage team had shifted the Pavit to Dighi after salvage- the Pavit was re-shifted to Dabhol later.

The authorities had sent a legal notice to the ship's owners based in Dubai. Pavit Shipping and Prime Tankers LLC are believed to have ignored this notice, and the Directorate General of Shipping is taking a serious look at auctioning the ship to recover damages. The DGS has asked the Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB) to “go ahead with the process of recovering dues” from the owners. 

The MMB had communicated to the owners that they “take responsibility to remove MT Pavit” and pay for “services rendered, including repairing the damaged shores, dues for vessel in port limit, compensation for obstruction caused for the unlawful use of said landing place and cost of the salvage operation”.

The MMB is now planning to take stronger action leading o a possible auction. "We will send a (legal) notice this week," said CEO of the MMB said Shyamsunder Shinde. "The period of deadline begins from the date we send the notice, failing which the vessel will be auctioned to recover costs.”