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Indian Seafarers – an Endangered Species

With malice towards one and all

That the Indian MET has not been fulfilling its customers’ aspirations is everyone’s concern. If anything is to be done, it requires the collective will of three cornerstones of the program for the purpose of decision making, execution and implementation – the political, the administrative and the institutional elements of the MET Administration. The political level comprises the Government, the administrative level consists of DG Shipping and the institutional level is represented by Maritime Training institutions, IMU and its campuses included. There is also a three-level of hierarchy – policy making, execution and implementation that corresponds with fairly broad aspects on the top and fairly narrow aspects at the bottom level. The attempt made in this editorial is only an impassive and impartial appraisal of the training coordinates of the maritime industry and to make recommendations for action of the concerned at all the three levels.

Existing  problems

The main problem is that Indian seafarer has become an “endangered species”. There are not enough young qualified people anymore who want to become ship officers (“those who could, won’t”). The decline of interest in seafaring has led to a shortage of national officers on ships flying the flag of the country and a shortage of ex-ship officers for positions in the shore-based national maritime industry for which shipboard experience is essential or at least desirable. This has created a loss of shipboard jobs for Indian nationals and is beginning to negatively affect the quality of services provided by the shore-based national maritime industries.

The problem is further exacerbated by the shortage of training berths for MET students on ships (“those who would, can’t”).

Moreover, ship officers from India are not competitive in wages with  ship officers from other South Asian, East European and Far East Asian countries, although ship operators in India are inclined to recruit nationals from other countries if they would be “affordable” and the Flag has no objection thereto. .

It has to be taken note that ship officers from some supply countries are as competent as or even better than Indian ship officers. There are good examples of certain Far Eastern Countries producing professionally good ship officers. Even some Eastern European countries as well as erstwhile Soviet Union Satellites are producing ship officers (as confirmed by the CIIPMET Study) as qualified as graduates from the IMU. Besides offering good academic and professional programmes and having well educated and shipboard-experienced teaching staff, MET institutions in these countries can choose their students from a pool of qualified applicants. The ratio between the number of qualified applicants and number of study places is >1:1 in these countries; this ratio is <1:1 in India. India is probably representing the extreme with a ratio of about 1:21, i.e. about one qualified applicants for 21 study places at the MET institutions.

Present MET in India is expensive and a majority of the Institutes do not appear to be prepared to “trim the ship” so that MET can cope with the challenges which the changing environmental conditions are creating or have already created. If these challenges are not met then a further loss of jobs and decline in quality of services will take place and maritime expertise in India will suffer to an alarming extent.

Reasons for problems

Individual reasons:.

The main reason for the main problem – Indian seafarer is an “endangered species” - is a grown unwillingness of qualified young people to join an industry with a bad image not only in safety and environment protection standards but also in work and social conditions for shipboard personnel. The hardship of being separated from the family and being deprived of a private life of own choice and even the shortened lay times in ports further reduce the attractiveness of shipboard service. The decline of interest in seafaring is reinforced by uncertainty of shipboard-training programmes at numerous MET institutions which make no provision on their programmes for at least pre-qualifying a ship officer for work in the maritime industry ashore when he/she may want to “swallow the anchor”.

Industry reasons:

Shipping is a global industry and ship operators have access to ship officers from an international market that are cheaper than their colleagues from India. With the existing fierce competition in the provision of transportation by sea, reducing costs is a matter of survival for ship operators. This has negatively affected the number of shipboard training bertths for MET students (cadets) which ship operators in India and other countries make available and also the number of officers they recruit from India. Notwithstanding the existence of these unfavourable conditions for the employment of seafarers from India, ship operators in other countries prefer to employ ship officers from  their own country as long as this would not became financially too disadvantageous. The decline of interest of young qualified people in a (temporary) career at sea has run parallel – although at a quicker pace - with the decline of number of crew required per ship and the replacement of smaller vessels by much larger units such as container ships which further reduced the demand for seafaring personnel.

Recommended solutions

MET alone is not in a position to provide solutions to all existing problems although it can contribute to the solution of most problems if it is given the necessary resources and general direction to develop MET programmes, which are attractive for more potential applicants, and an appropriate range of freedom to extend its activities to research and consultancy which would also allow for making an own income. The creation of these MET-enabling prerequisites requires political decisions on the concentration of resources and an extended mandate for MET institutions.

MET has to be made more attractive and should ideally meet the Indian vision of making “the maritime industry within the year 2020 the most interesting, challenging and international industry young Indians may qualify for” as it is stated in a national promotion campaign. Making MET more attractive requires the taking into account of the potential clients’ wishes. Qualified young people who should be attracted to MET should be offered career possibilities in the maritime industry aboard and ashore. So-called ship-shore programmes leading to academic degrees in addition to professional awards (certificates of competency) are best suited to attract more qualified young people to seafaring. Add-on shore-oriented programmes to certificate of competency only programmes are suitable, although only a second best solution as integrated ship-shore programmes also help to develop cost consciousness of ship officers and a better appreciation of head office decisions.

It has to be made easier for ship owners in India to employ nationals. Various schemes from tax exemption to direct support to the shipboard training of MET students (cadets) are already in existence. They will have to be scrutinized for their effectiveness and new national schemes may have to be developed. The governments and the ship operators should cooperate in attracting more qualified young people to MET, also with a view on the provision of the necessary expertise for the national maritime industry and administration on shore.

Additional remarks: It is appreciated that, for geographical reasons and for facilitating the attraction of applicants from the vicinity of a MET institution, the number of MET institutions in a state is higher than in other states as it is, for example, the case in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi. It will however be most difficult with such a local recruitment approach to safeguard a satisfactory quality of MET at all institutions and attract students with higher general education achievements who expect not only to be able to obtain a certificate of competency but also an academic degree. The IMU practice of a useless Entrance Examination for even the sponsored candidates and shunting them to the far-flung godforsaken institutes just to satisfy the whims of the IMU for what they call the equitable distribution of the candidates should be stopped. It is all a matter of choice for the students and the recruiters. The recruitment should be done by the three major Associations such as INSA, FOSMA and MASSA and the companies under them would pick up the candidates from the respective associations. These associations will have a say in the quality of education, facilities and the standard of practical coordinates and teaching in all the maritime institutions and only the fittest institutes that fit the rigor of the associations will get the candidates. Neither the IMU nor the board of examiners for all their worth, who bend everyone’s will and the norms for undue pecuniary benefits for themselves should have a say in the admissions and geographical preferences of the prospective seafarers. Sharing of facilities such as ship-in-campus for all its worth, workshops (really a must), libraries, simulators (mandatory) among the institutes in the same location should be made legitimate by the Maritime Administration. No point in having five ships-in-campus, which only enriched a few maritime administrators who wanted the consultancy contract to be given to a particular person for the undercuts the system earned and the specific Alang Cartels that supplied the unserviceable and obsolete junks that were sold to various institutes for coffering the coffers of the specific officials who did not allow the institutes to have a say in where-to-buy or what-to-buy. This was same with the simulators too. A particular institute which doubled up as the manufacturers or resellers of simulators supplied outdated screens and projectors that would have largely resembled vision mixing rooms of the good old movie studios and if anyone had the guts and gumption went for a wider choice or canvas in selecting the vendor was penalized with his institute being penalized and the courses suspended. The cartels have almost ceased to exist along with the cessation of employment of their sponsors in the citadels of power though some of them continue in the manufacture of safety equipment. I have seen one of the surveyors haranguing Krishnaraj Rai before approving his safetty equipment samples. Money and manythings change hands still in the practice of apprval of safety and FFA appliances.

Such “new” MET institutions should extend their activities to research and consultancy, should develop and deliver short intensive updating courses (Professional Development Courses) and provide other services in matters maritime to the industry and the administration which may be required.

The progress in MET should be accelerated by networking and cooperative efforts of leading MET institutions in all seafaring countries although this may create a fast track and a slow track MET (to high quality) as long as the concentration of national MET resources is not completed. However, there is n  time to lose if the continuing present trend towards the “endangered species” of Indian seafarers is to be halted and reversed. It is the networking and cooperation of leading MET institution that can help bring about necessary change in a reasonable time. Any effort to “drag” along all present 122 MET institutions in India is bound to fail.”

Malaises of Institutes

Over and above the checks and controls, ratings that are in place for evaluating the standards of approved maritime institutes, the recruiting bodies and employers (RPSL Companies) should be allowed and encouraged to inspect the colleges and hostels. There are institutes in Delhi that allow or rather mandate compulsory holidays on the weekends on the pretext of allowing freedom to the hostel inmates but in actual practice to save on the mess bills on the weekends. There are institutes in the South that take away the credit cards of the students only to get authorizations for fines for everything silly, daft and juvenile. And the boys do commit bloomers and pay generously to the coffers of such institutes. Have they got the choices? The worst of all came from a chairman of an institute who demanded unnatural sexual favours for every such acts of indiscipline they committed and believed to have committed. Quick justice? That would seem so. Because one such institute came for raps of the DG subsequently came to be bestowed with additional seats because its benefactor happened to be de fact consultant of the institute while he officiously and officially continued as the Chairman of the Academic Council until he retired.

There is a lot said and done about many unscrupulous manning agents cheating the unwary and separate seafarers for arranging their shipboard training. The October 2013 issue highlighted the plights of the “boys waiting” to board their first vessel and how the agents, unions and even some institutes play havoc in their budding careers. Nothing can be over-emphasized that all these cause a great deal of calumnious reverberations in the hypersensitive industry, the watchful media missing nothing.

In all it is a trapeze act on the part of all the players in the industry – the ship owner, manning agents, the MET Institutions and finally the seafarers themselves, with no scope of applause for the act but the perils are ever so dangerous to the act and the whole shebang of MET. Winners don’t boast about the success. The losers are no more around to tell their stories.