Latest revision as of 20:06, 18 April 2024

[edit] Sailors from India

[edit] 2024: India no.3 among sailor-supplying nations

Rudroneel Ghosh, March 28, 2024: The Times of India

The freight ship collision that led to the collapse of a bridge in Baltimore, US, could have been a bigger catastrophe had it not been for quick thinking by the 22-member Indian crew on board Dali. Sailors issued a mayday call before the collision, allowing authorities to stop traffic on the bridge, preventing mass casualties. Only six people remain missing. Joe Biden praised the Indian crew for the timely alert that saved lives.


Dali is just one of many ships manned largely or wholly by Indian sailors. Global shipping, which carries more than 90% of world goods trade by volume, will take a hit without Indian seafarers.


Here’s a quick look at a less-appreciated dimension of India’s contribution to the global economy:


In Top 3: India ranks third among sailor-supplying nations – China and the Philippines are the first two. Per stats from the directorate general of shipping, GOI, India provides almost 10% of global seafarers.

42% growth in jobs for Indian sailors in 2013-17

Indians In Global Shipping To Hit 20% In 10 Years

The four years between 2013 and 2017 saw a growth of 42.3% in shipboard jobs for Indian sailors. Mind you, India is some ways behind China, which contributes 33% of the world’s sailors. There’s a difference though. Most Chinese sailors work on board Chinese vessels, while India’s seafarers work in national as well as foreign ships. Indian sailors are therefore more global. That can change when India builds and operates more ships.


Numbers Speak: The total number of Indian seafarers on ships increased from 1,08,446 in 2013 to 1,54,339 in 2017, as per latest data available. There were 62,016 Indian marine officers and 82,734 rating ship hands in 2017. These numbers have likely increased substantially since. In fact, recent estimates put the total number of Indian seafarers at 2,50,000 with 1,60,000 professionally-certified seafarers who serve cargo ships, and some 90,000 who serve on cruise liners.


Quality Too: Plus, India has long been on the International Maritime Organisation’s White List. The list was created to identify member states that are fully in compliance with STCW-95 Convention and Code. Inclusion in this list requires a country has appropriate seafarer licensing systems, oversight of training centres, flag state control (this ensures control measures over flagged ships) and port state control (proper govt checks of foreign ships in national ports). India being on the White List makes Indian sailors attractive talent for international shipping companies. 
Future Potential: Industry experts estimate that the proportionof Indian seafarers in global shipping is slated to increase to 20% over the next decade. Four factors are driving this trend — good training institutes in India, rising literacy, aging seafarer population in Europe, and Indian sailors’ proficiency in English. The country has about 166 maritime training institutes. But currently, only about 50% of pre-sea seats in academies get filled. There’s clearly, therefore, a huge potential for expanding the Indian seafaring pool.


Covid And Ukraine War: Covid drove home the essential role played by Indian seafarers. At the start of the pan- demic there was a labour shortage on cargo ships because shipping companies were reluctant to hire Indian seafarers — scared by stats on rising cases and deaths in the country. While the International Maritime Organisation had to push most govts to designate seafarers as key workers, GOI was quick off the blocks to provide such a designation to Indian merchant navy personnel.


Plus, the Ukraine war has increased the demand for Indian seafarers. Before the war, Russia and Ukraine together contributed nearly 15% of global seafarers. But that supply has been disrupted due to the conflict, forcing shipping companies to look to countries like India.


Challenges: There are, of course, challenges. First, merchant navy must compete with other attractive vocations such as IT in attracting young professionals. Second, there are insufficient training berths on board ships. And third, low intake of women in the maritime sector is a big drag on supply. Address these, and soon one in five sailors in the world will be Indian.

[edit] Sailors abandoned by International employers/ 2024

Sushil Rao, April 14, 2024: The Times of India

The 21 Indian crew on MV Dali, which crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge late March, have been stuck on board for almost three weeks, but there are hundreds of other Indian sailors stranded on ships across the world whose stories haven’t been told.


It might surprise you that most abandoned sailors are Indians. A report by International Transport Federation (ITF), released in January, says 400 Indian crew were abandoned on ships last year. Some haven’t received salaries for months, others have been conned into joining ‘arrested’ ships that cannot leave the ports where they are berthed (a ship is arrested when it has unpaid dues at the port or has been caught in some illegal act).
Right now, 12 Indian sailors are stuck on Fatma Eylul, an arrested ship berthed at Jetty Ambarli Port in Istanbul, Turkey. They were offered jobs on it last Dec. An agent received them, took them on board and vanished the next day. “To our horror, we were informed by security personnel that we couldn’t leave the port,” ship master Cleetus, who hails from Tamil Nadu, told TOI from Istanbul.


“It is practically like being in prison. We are in a precarious situation. Our families are worried,” the ship’s crew said in a letter to India’s Director General of Shipping. 


Some Are Stuck For Years


Human trafficking is a common issue in the shipping industry. Crew are often hired without contracts, or the contracts aren’t honoured. “It is a traumatic experience for seafarers,” said Capt Manoj Joy of Sailors Welfare Association, India.


Capt Ayyappan Swaminathan fought a bitter three-year battle with the management of MV Azraq Moiah, stranded at Ajman Port, UAE, whose 12 crew weren’t paid for months and denied essentials like food and drinking water at the height of the stand-off. The crew finally disembarked in June 2019.


The crew of oil tanker MT Tamim was also stranded on the vessel at Sharjah for nearly two years. The plight of chief engineer Gorrepotu Venkat Rao, able sea- man Kurma Rao Chintada – both from Andhra Pradesh – and chief officer Dhruva Chandra from Uttar Pradesh caught the attention of the Ministry of External Affairs, which rescued them.
In yet another case, two Indian crew members of MV Tamim Aldar escaped in a lifeboat after being stranded for 34 months on the abandoned ship. Chief engineer Arso Lobo and crew member Vikas Mishra were rescued by the UAE coast guard in the Persian Gulf in August 2019. 


How To Spot Shady Offers

Often, crew with some basic training are put on ships in a way that lets the ship management evade accountability, said Abhijeet Sangle, president of Mumbaibased All India Seafarers and General Workers Union. “There is no record of them anywhere,” he added.
 Sangle said proper checking of sailors’ documents before they are allowed to travel abroad can prevent trafficking: “This will ensure their safety, as it can be ascertained if a responsible organisation is offering them jobs,” he said.


Sangle has helped many Indian sailors who were abandoned at sea, including 23 in Nigeria, 11 in Cyprus, two in Indonesia and two in Kuwait.
Abandoning sailors is a human rights abuse, said Kuwait-based activist Shaheen Sayyed, who hails from Mumbai: “They are left in helpless situations and even denied basic amenities.” She helped J Shankar Rao of Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh, who was stranded on board the ship MT Apecus at Bonny Island in Nigeria, return home. He was alone on the ship as other crew had been taken captive by pirates.

This page awaits content from you

[edit] See also

Inland water transport: India

Shipping, India: I

Shipping, India: II (government data)

Shipbreaking: India, South Asia