There has been an unprecedented growth of 42.3 per cent shipboard jobs for Indian seafarers in the last four years, the Ministry of Shipping said on Friday.
The Ministry also said that a total of 4700 women are among 1.54 lakh trained seafarers active in the country today.
In a statement, Mansukh Mandaviya, the Union Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport & Highways said that the Ministry of Shipping has strived to improve employment generation in the Shipping sector during the last four years.
He said that as many as 810 women are employed in the Shipping sector.
“The last four years saw an unprecedented growth of 42.3 per cent shipboard jobs for Indian seafarers. The seafarers employed on ships worldwide increased from 108446 in 2013 to 154349 in 2017,” Mandaviya said.
The Union minister pointed out that India now provides 9.35 per cent of the global seafarers and ranks third in the list of the largest seafarer supplying nation to the world maritime industry.
Since January 2018, the Directorate of Shipping started issuing the Indian CDC for candidates who completed the five basic STCW courses. Prior to this, candidates who were doing the long duration pre-sea courses were issued Indian CDC.
This new initiative helped lot of seafarers to pursue Indian CDC who otherwise were holding CDC for other flags like Panama, Liberia, etc.
The Ministry also said that the ban on opening of the new pre-sea and post-sea institutes has been lifted and various requirements for approval of courses also delinked.
“This has considerably helped in opening of the new maritime training institutes. This shall definitely assist in further increasing the number of Indian seafarers in global market,” the Ministry added in the statement.