The Director General of Shipping has centralised the issue of Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC), a seafarer's identity document required to board a ship.
From April 1, the CDCs will be issued only by the Shipping Master in Mumbai and no applications will be received by offices of Shipping Masters in Chennai and Kolkata.
The move of the DG Shipping was, however, opposed by the port workers' union in Chennai. "The Government was adopting step motherly attitude towards South Indian seamen and denying opportunity for obtaining CDCs here," said Mr T. Narendra Rao, General Secretary, Water Transport Workers Federation of India. In Chennai, around 50 CDCs are issued every month, he said.
Circular
A circular issued by DG Shipping on March 7 says that the move was part of the Government's e-governance programme to accelerate the facilitation of Government services by using information technology.
This is to reduce human interaction and improve transparency. In the office of Shipping Masters, Mumbai, CDC applications for candidates undergoing pre-sea training are processed through training institutes, which submit their applications online and forward the supporting document by post.
The DG Shipping has asked Shipping Masters in Chennai and Kolkata to ensure that all pending cases of issuance of CDCs are disposed of by March 31.
Thereafter, all applications received by post need to be forwarded to Shipping Master, Mumbai.
Mr Rao told Business Line that the shipping office in Chennai is engaged in registering ships, conducting examinations for ships' officers, surveying passenger and cargo vessels, looking after the safety, navigation, prevention and pollution of the sea, investigating and inquiring into marine causalities such as collision and other accidents.
The shipping office is also empowered to issue certificates to ships on various aspects such as safety, construction, radio, telephone, telegraphy, load line and oil pollution. From April, everything needs to be done from Mumbai.
This will cause a lot of delays and hardship to seamen and to ship owners in Chennai and also in Kolkata, he said.
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