VASCO
Amid efforts to revive cruise tourism business, a fresh set of seafarers were offloaded at Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) on Thursday.
According to Govind Pernulkar, senior manager at JM Baxi company, the cruise vessel ‘Norwegian Encore’ arrived at MPT and while there were no passengers on board, the cruise vessel had 2,533 seafarers of different nationalities, including 502 Indian crew, of which around 252 crew were Goans disembarking at MPT.
"Norwegian cruise liner ships usually calls at MPT but this time, the ‘Norwegian Encore’ vessel arrived at MPT only to drop 502 Indian crew. The vessel had 2,533 crew, of which a majority were from Philippines, Indonesia and India.”
“The only port that the vessel touched was at MPT to drop all Indian crew. The cruise liner had actually taken some crew from India in November last year, but they have been disembarked now," said Pernulkar.
"We offloaded the Goan crew on March 24 and Indian crew the next day. All crew were subject to RT-PCR tests and all of them tested negative, after which they were sent home. While Goans were sent by buses, the Indian crew were sent by flights and all these crew will be subject to home quarantine," said Pernulkar.
Pernulkar said that all agencies, including the port, CISF, Customs, immigration, health authorities and state administration helped the company in all fronts to quickly disembark the Indian crew, including Goans.
Fears raised over future of cruise tourism: Fears have been raised over future of cruise tourism, as Covid cases have been on the rise all over the world.
“Our company, JM Baxi, was the highest handlers of cruise vessels at different ports in the country. We were looking forward to a great business as it looked that the cruise tourism would revive,” said Govind Pernulkar, senior manager at JM Baxi company.
“We would handle around 40-45 cruise vessels a season, but the last ship handled by us was on March 9 last year, after which there has been no business on account of the pandemic,” he said.
“There were hopes that cruise tourism would revive as cruise liners had begun taking their crew back and a ship had even taken around 1,500 crew from across India in November.”
Pernulkar said while companies had begun efforts to restart cruise business, the second wave of Covid hit Europe and there were many lockdowns, leading ships to remain idle.
“A decision was taken to send the crew back instead of keeping them idle. At least as of now, there is nothing happening for the coming season and there is no line up of ships till October, Pernulkar said, adding, “if at all there is business, we may get some news by September”.
