The plan has not worked out.

"For the last six months there has not been a single visitor," said Vittal.

"In the last five years I have not seen such a bad patch. I am planning to close shop and go and assist my brother who is having his own design consultancy firm."

Vittal, 57, who sells carpet, radios, televisions, pillows and wooden shirt hangers at his 'Harsidhti Traders' shop pulled from ships beached and broken up for scrap here, is not alone.

During its peak, the shipbreaking yard at Alang Port, 260 kilometers (161 miles) south of Gujarat state capital Ahmedabad, dismantled more than 350 ships a year.

The shipbreaking yard was set up in 1983 and in 1989 it dismantled 361 ships, weighing three million tonnes in total. But by March 2005 the numbers had fallen to 116, or 540,350 tonnes.

The latest bad news to hit the "ship shops" is the controversy over decommissioned French warship Clemenceau, which may be barred from Alang over safety concerns for workers removing toxic chemicals on board, including asbestos.

The aircraft carrier has been cleared to transit through the Suez Canal, but must remain outside India's territorial waters until a decision is made on a lawsuit by environmental groups seeking to bar its entry.

The Indian Supreme Court is scheduled to issue a final ruling by February 13 on the warship, but the episode has already affected dozens of "ship shops" on the four-kilometre (2.5-mile) street leading to Alang Port.

Bahadur Vajabhai built a 6,000-square-foot (558-square-meter) shop here in the hope it would be "a life-long business."

"It is a sad state of affairs and I and my family are going back to agriculture. This suddenly has stopped paying. There is no business for the last one year," he said.

The shops sport sofas, massive engine parts covered by plastic sheets, rows of chairs and small boats that cost 70,000 rupees (1,555 dollars).

There are also cosmetics, old telephones, casino machines, dining tables and Chinese and Italian cutlery, all neatly arranged.

But there are no customers.

"I have lost interest as there are no serious buyers. The occasional tourist is not a serious buyer. Earlier I used to sell only wholesale. Now I am forced to go retail as I've got to clear my inventory which is rusting," Vittal said.

"I am dipping into my savings to pay rent of 2,500 rupees every month," he said.

Dealers lounge in chairs drinking sweet tea and swatting away flies, or fall asleep on string beds next to piles of Russian-made binoculars and Chinese-made water-proof boots.

"I invested quite a bit into this business which has run into a loss," Vittal said. "Earlier, every month I used to get two to three lots of different products. Now it has stopped completely."

Vajabhai said buyers from state-run corporations or resort owners avoid the area now because bargains are scarce.

"The price of the ships to be demolished has gone up. So now the cost of these items have also shot up. It is almost like buying a new one," he said.

Hemant Manubhai, who sells lamps, said 2005 was the worst year he experienced, a sentiment echoed by scrap dealer Arif Nayani.

"I lost 600,000 rupees in just six months," Nayani said.

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