The Hindu Business Line : Move to raise marine officers' retirement age

HALE and hearty and worrying of hanging up the sailing boots at 60? Do not despair as the Indian maritime administration is toying with the idea of pushing the retirement age of marine officers to 70.

Though the retirement age of marine officers is 60 years, shipping lines are currently allowed to retain officers on a selective basis up to 65 years with permission from the Mercantile Marine Department.

The Directorate-General of Shipping is examining a proposal to extend the retirement age of marine officers from 60 to 70 years.

"This is being considered as one of the short-term measures to help domestic shipping lines tide over a severe manpower shortage," said a senior Government official.

Shortage of marine engineers has become acute once domestic lines, encouraged by the booming freight market, started acquiring additional fleet.

Indian Merchant Navy that employs roughly 5,000 officers added 47 ships of over one million grt in the last fiscal.

As on April 1, the domestic ocean-going fleet stands at the record level of 686 ships of 8.01 grt as against a 639 ships of 6.94 grt a year ago.

Though no official figures available on shortage of marine engineers, some estimates show that shipping lines require at least 800-1,000 officers in different categories to fill the existing vacancies.

Great Eastern Shipping Company alone needs 400 officers. The company that expanded its tonnage by 20 per cent in last fiscal has been finding it difficult to get enough trained men to operate its expanded fleet.

According to analysts, extending the retirement age of seafarers is unlikely to have any major impact on the shortage as men above 60 account for hardly one or two per cent of the total employed workforce. They point out that, shipping companies also to be blamed for the current shortage as most of them do not have any long-term manpower training plan.

With the introduction of tonnage tax, Indian companies are now on par with global players in terms of taxation, and they should be able to pay matching wages to their employees.

Earlier, shipping companies had sought permission to recruit foreign crew, which was rejected following protest from seamen's unions. Now they are seeking other short-term measures.

At a meeting called to discuss the shortage of marine officers, the Director-General of Shipping had also agreed to consider recognition to certificates of competency issued to marine engineers by four more countries: Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Australia.

This means Indians passing out of institutions in these countries can be employed on Indian ships.

Currently, the Government recognises certificates issued by only four foreign countries — the UK, Ireland, Malaysia and Iran.

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