MARGAO
Ashok Naik, a seafarer from Vasco, employed on the Royal Caribbean cruise liner, is keeping his fingers crossed. The reason: He is on a vacation in his home state, but has no idea whether he would be able to join the cruise liner again without an Indian CDC (Continuous Discharge Certificate).
Charles Fernandes, from Benaulim, working on the Celebrity cruise liner, also echoed similar sentiments. In fact, Goan seafarers working on cruise liners, returning home for vacations now face an uncertain future with the Director of Shipping’s circular making SSC certificate mandatory for Indian CDC coming into force from this month.
Rough estimates have put the number of Goan seafarers to be affected by the Shipping Director’s order to over 2000, with seamen association’s raising questions whether the government will be in a position to provide employment to these young sailors.
Beleaguered seafarers working on the cruise liners on Friday assembled in the city here to chalk out the future course of action as petitions made to South Goa MP Narendra Sawaikar, TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai have not met with success though the duo had dashed off letters to Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari to bail out the seafarers community by dispensing with the SSC certificate.
Says Dixon Vaz, president of Goan Seamen Association of India: “Young Goan seafarers are heading towards big time trouble. Time is indeed running out for the government authorities to persuade the Director of Shipping to waive of the SSC certificate mandatory for Indian CDC.”
While appreciating the correspondence made by the South Goa MP to the Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari, Dixon, however, insisted that the matter needs to be resolved on utmost priority to save the Goan seafarers from unemployment. “Seafarers returning home on vacation will not be able to go back on the cruise liners without the Indian CDC as the DG Shipping has made SSC qualification mandatory for the CDC,” Dixon said.
He reminded the Director General of Shipping that Goan seafarers have been employed on the cruise liners because of their educational qualification, but simply because of their talent and aptitude to do all kinds of job.
With mining facing an uncertain future and the Tourism industry doing not so good, Dixon said that Goa can ill afford to have seafarers unemployed just because of the CDC issue. “We have discussed the matter with the NRI Commissioner and the official has been invited to Margao next week to discuss threadbare the issue,” he said.
