No one ever expected that India will fall in to such a nationwide problem considering the cases of covid that shoot up in the month of April.
With being a hotspot in the world for covid, lots of nations have closed their borders for Indian national to travel or transit. This brings us to the same situation in the last year March when crew change was a big issue.
Though world is more prepared now than before, but situation is not much better. So many seafarers have got their sign off and sign off cancelled due to ever changing travel rules. With fast closing borders and strict restrictions for travelling, seafarers are again left with no choice as to continue as where they are-that is sea.
As the nation is engulfed by the COVID 2nd wave, seafarers are trying to get their certificates renewed and possibly to get vaccinated. But all this is not so easy. Several steps have been taken by the DG Shipping India, but the complexity related to the pandemic is just not making things easy.