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POLICY

flagships. the first time ever. ping throughout this year. As Cruise
In another significant development, Three Memorandums of Under- Tourism has huge potential, the Min-
to promote movement of passenger, standing (MoUs) were signed between istry has taken various steps for pro-
cruise services and cargo transit to Ranong Port (Port Authority of Thai- motion of international and domestic
North East Region (NER), the alterna- land) and the Port Trusts of Chennai, cruise services in India. The arrival of
tive connectivity route via Bangladesh’s Vishakhapatnam and Kolkata. These the first private premium luxury cruise
Chattogram and Mongla Ports was first MoUs will enhance economic partner- liner ‘KARNIKA’ has added another
time used to North East Region. ship by cutting down the sea travel time chapter in domestic cruise tourism in
This will increase trade volumes and between India and Thailand from 10- 15 India. “KARNIKA” is offering for the first
reduce logistic costs of the cargo. Eight days to 7 days. time opportunity to Indians to experi-
routes are also provided under the ence cruise tourism between Mumbai
Agreement, which would enable access Ease of Doing Business — Goa, Mumbai — Ganpatipule (Jaigad),
of NER via Bangladesh. A MoU was also India has improved its ranking un- Mumbai — Diu, Mumbai — Gulf routes.
signed with the Germany for technol- der the Trading Across Border (TAB) Inaugural cruise services were started
between Dhaka and Kolkata this year.
Four cruise vessels have already trav-
India has also elled between India and Bangladesh in
2019.
acceded to IMO Hong
Kong International Seafarers growth
The number of seafarers increased
Convention for Safe and from 1,54,349 in 2017 to 2,08,799 in 2018
Environmentally Sound and to 2,31,776 in 2019. India has seen
an unprecedented growth of Indian
Recycling of Ships in seafarers employed on-board Indian
and foreign flagged vessels, as a result
November 2019. The of cumulative impact of decisions of
new Act provides a the Government to improve the qual-
ity of Maritime Training, increase in the
legislative framework for training capacity and increase in the
implementation of the number of training berths.
The standardization of course cur-
provisions of the Hong riculum and course material, improve-
Kong Convention. It also ment in examination system and above
all by ease of doing business brought
contains provisions of the through simplified processes and with
Convention, which are not e-governance modules in the year 2019
had also helped in growth. Issuing Bio-
covered in the metric Seafarers Identity Document
Ship-Breaking Code (BSID) is considered a revolutionary
step in this direction. An agreement
(Revised), 2013 has been also signed with Sweden for
mutual recognition of the certificates
of seafarers in December 2019.
ogy collaboration for the Central Inland parameter of Ease of Doing business For skill development, under the
& Coastal Maritime Technology (CICMT) (EoDB) from 80 to 68. This has been fa- Phase 2 of Sagarmala Deen Dayal
at IIT Kharagpur during the state visit of cilitated due to various measures like Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana
German Chancellor. Direct Port Delivery (DPD), Direct Port (DDUGKY) for convergence for skill de-
India and Nepal have agreed to in- Entry (DPE), Introduction of RFID, and velopment in Port and Maritime Sector
clude Inland Waterways connectivity installation of scanners and container has been launched in Gujarat, Maha-
as an additional mode of transport in scanners, simplification of procedures rashtra, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and
the Treaty of Transit. An Indian wa- etc., taken by the major ports. Tamil Nadu. Besides these dedicated
terway was used for transportation of Promotion of Cruise Tourism and training centres have also been inau-
cargo between Bangladesh and Bhutan, Coastal Shipping was one of the top gurated in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and
using India for transit on 12.07.2019, for most priorities of the Ministry of Ship- Tamil Nadu.

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