The Hindu Business Line : Drop in detention of Indian ships at foreign ports

THE number of Indian ships detained at foreign ports under the Port State Control (PSC) has dropped from eight during January to March 1, due to the strict measures initiated by the Directorate-General of Shipping to avoid such detentions, as these have been staining the image of Indian ships in the global maritime trade sector.

The DGS has initiated the campaign in the light of the increasing incidents of Indian ships getting detained in foreign ports during the last few years. Within the first six weeks of 2004, there had been five detentions — two vessels of Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and one each of Essar Shipping, Sanmar and Surendra.

Even under the US Coast Guard (USCG) there had been one detention in the current year — APJ Shalin belonging to Surrendra Group was detained in the US on February 4, 2004. This has resulted in Indian ships remaining under the watch list of USCG.

In the last year too, the performance of the Indian ships was not good, following which India remained in the `Black List' of Paris MOU and `Grey List' of Tokyo MOU. "If this trend is not immediately halted, Indian ships may almost get banned from operations in the US, Paris and Tokyo MOU regions. More detentions indicate the falling standards of maintenance and house keeping of Indian ships and lack," shipping analysts point out.

Mr G.S. Sahni, Director General of Shipping, said the DGS had initiated a programme to observe a campaign against detention of ships in March, which was instrumental in bringing down the detention rate to one during the month. "All Indian shipowners had responded well and had appreciated the need to reverse the trend. Things are improving," he told presspersons here on Thursday.

Responding to a question on the implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security code, the DGS said the implementation of the code at all the 12 Indian major ports, 200 Indian ships and 33 minor ports would be wrapped up before the deadline of July 1, 2004, fixed by the International Maritime Organisation.

On the developments in the shipping industry, Mr P.K. Srivastava, Chairman and Managing Director of Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), said there had been a positive trend in the growth of shipping and ports. "The strength of the Indian fleet registered an increase from 616 ships of 6.18 million GRT (10.06 million DWT) as on March 31, 2003, to 637 ships of 6.84 million GRT (11.25 million DWT) as on March 1, 2004.