• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Sajeev Kumar V.

India, being a maritime country with skilled workers fluent in the English language, has the potential to become the largest supplier of trained manpower.

THE International Association of Maritime Universities (IAMU) has 29 affiliated universities of excellence all over the world, but none in India. China, on the other hand, has as many as 10.

"Whatever be the reasons for this, it is time for change, for transforming the vision of India's maritime growth into reality," Lt Cmdr Rajkumar, of the Indian Navy, said at a recent seminar of the Institute of Marine Engineers (India) in Kochi. "Systematic, well-organised and supervised maritime training is the crying need of the day," he observed.

India, with its 7,000-km coastline and about 2.2 million sq km of exclusive economic zone, ranks 17th among the world maritime nations in terms of GRT and 15th in terms of DWT. The Indian shipping tonnage, which was just 1.92 lakh GRT on the eve of Independence, stood at 6.22 million last October.

The demand for trained deck and engineer officers for sea-going vessels is projected to grow at an annual rate of 15-20 per cent. The shortage of trained manpower, estimated to be 5 per cent by 2005, is to jump to 12 per cent by 2012.

The present trend among the developed nations is to outsource trained manpower from the Third World countries and, India, being a largely English-language trained maritime country, has the potential to become the largest supplier of trained manpower to the marine world. The establishment of a maritime university, therefore, should receive the top priority, Lt Cmdr Rajkumar said.

There are over 130 maritime training institutes in the country for providing maritime training. However, the quality of training in most of these institutes leaves much to be desired. Unless the level of training improves, the plan to capitalise on the global boom in demand for trained manpower will remain a distant dream. Government intervention, therefore, is necessary. The paper highlighted the need for constituting a national regulatory body under the Director-General of Shipping to monitor the level of training in several privately-run training institutes in the country.

Fortunately, as he pointed out, a beginning has been made in this direction. The Director-General Shipping has initiated steps to engage the services of agencies such as CRISIL, ICRA and CARE to monitor the level of maritime training through regular assessments and audits.

India has an edge over many other countries in the supply of English-speaking trained manpower for the maritime sector, thanks to the education system with focus on the use of English language as the medium of study. In this respect also, there is little room for complacency as China is fast catching up.

The day may not be far off when China might emerge as the supplier of the largest number of English-language trained manpower for the maritime sector. It would be sad if India, despite having a large pool of English language trained manpower, fails to cash in on the global boom.

The paper recommended the implementation of Web-based training curriculum and assiduous use of IT-like simulation and Virtual Reality (VR) by the maritime training institutes to keep pace with the changing technology.

The importance of proactive implementation of the STCW 95 (Standards of Training Certification and Watchkeeping) and ISPS (International Ship and Port Facility Security) Code was also emphasised.

The paper also recommended the continual improvement and revision of the training syllabi by the DG Shipping within the framework of STCW 95 guidelines. "This is particularly relevant in terms of the apparent conflict of interests in respect of emerging technology and the co-existence of the time-tested marine disciplines', it pointed out.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
No easy take-off for pvt airlines to SAARC nations

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line