Corona Season Sees More Than One Lakh Crew Changes On Indian Ports

Ministry of Shipping has facilitated more than 100,000 crew changes, the highest number in the world, on Indian ports and through charter flights.

Crew change consists of replacing one of the ship’s crew members with another one and involves sign-on the ships and sign-off the ship's procedures.

The Maritime sector is among the worst hit sectors due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite that, all the Indian ports were operational and providing essential services throughout the pandemic while the main pillar for the smooth supply chain for India and the world were the seafarers.

Seafarers had to suffer due to closing of Sign-on and Sign-off and lockdowns and movement restrictions imposed by the various countries worldwide.

Shipping Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has appreciated the continued efforts by the Directorate-General, Shipping, during the briefing, especially for facilitating the return of stranded seafarers during this difficult time.

The Minister instructed the DG (Shipping) to come up with robust grievance redress mechanisms to help seafarers.

He strongly emphasised that seafarers be able to approach the ministry during difficult times and that no seafarer should suffer due to a poor grievance redress system.

To sustain maritime transportation during the pandemic situation, DG (Shipping) has taken various initiatives like extensions of various certificates required for sailing, Online E-pass facility for travel among others.

“An online utility has been created for verification of seafarers for chartered flights and for uploading details of stranded seafarers along with online ship registrations and online charter licensing”, DG (Shipping) Amitabh Kumar added, while briefing the Minister.

DG (Shipping) received communications via emails, tweets, and letters from more than 2,000 maritime stakeholders and took immediate responsive action to facilitate their needs.

E-learning for module courses and online virtual courses have also been conducted by DG (Shipping) and more than 35,000 students enrolled for e-learning.

An Online Exit Exam is being conducted for seafarers after completing online courses and they can now appear in the exam from the comfort of their homes in pandemic season.