The Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) — still clueless on how hazardous the ship may be — on Monday held a meeting and asked the Gujarat Enviro Protection and Infrastructure Limited (GEPIL), whose team went to France to gather ‘‘actual details’’ — to submit a report.

The GMB has not details about when the team went to France and why the details were not revealed earlier.

The board’s decision will now be based on the report submitted by GEPIL, which is a private firm based in Surat. Incidentally, GEPIL happens to be a sister concern of the Luthra Group, which along with Shree Ram Vessels, has bought the warship for breaking at Alang. Despite several attempts, authorities of GEPIL could not be contacted.

‘‘A GEPIL team had visited France and will now submit a report to the board on how hazardous the ship is. The reason a green signal was given to the ship being brought here was that the France government had insured that only they would remove most of the asbestos and other toxic material,’’ said H K Dash, Vice-Chairman and CEO, GMB. He said following reports that the warship contained more than 40 tonnes of asbestos, they decided to send a team for ‘‘verification.’’ ‘‘The report, expected in a week, will would help us decide on the future course of action,’’ Dash added, admitting that GEPIL is a sister concern of Luthra. The ship is expected to reach in three weeks time.

While the main focus presently is on whether to let the aircraft carrier be allowed to anchor at Alang at all, Indian authorities are also facing other issues like how much asbestos can workers at the Asia’s biggest ship breaking yard actually handle.

Despite the tall and repeated claims of Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) officials and the GMB that the ship would be free of toxic materials by 98 per cent, fears of most environmentalists seem to have come true as reports about the warship containing more that 40 tonnes of asbestos are coming to light.

‘‘Giving the green signal to Clemenceau itself was controversial and now with several reports of the warship being full of toxic materials, one has to definitely rethink,’’ said a senior GMB official.

Ramapathy Kumar of Greenpeace said: ‘‘We have come across reports about Technopure, the company which was given the contract for removing the asbestos, claiming that there might be more than 500 tonnes remaining.’’ The Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Hazardous Waste headed by S Thyagrajan is expected to meet on Friday. Dr Claude Alveris, member of the committee confirmed that Clemenceau was on the agenda for Friday meeting. ‘‘India is in no position to handle more than 25 tonnes of asbestos. What is needed is to get the the right figures and details about toxic materials from the French government,’’ he stated, adding that only that would held decide on the future action.

He further added that over a year ago, the Supreme Court Committee had already informed GPCB that one of the options was to ensure that the toxic materials which arrive with aircraft carrier, are sent back to France. ‘‘However, as no undertaking regarding this has been made with the French Government, we will now have to look for other options,’’ he added. Despite much opposition from environmentalists, Clemenceau had been cleared for breaking at Alang by Indian authorities in May this year. However, the toxic cargo till Saturday was anchored at Toulon port in France where it was being stripped of the toxic materials including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and tributylin (TBT).

The ship, after being in service for 35 years, it was decommissioned in 1997. Greece and Turkey have already refused it the permission to break and environmentalists strongly believe that India is being used as a dumping ground for toxic wastes.