I must say it is a privilege to be able to address this issue, representing, as I do, a constituency with a very long history of seafaring, Thiruvananthapuram. Indeed, a port we have just south of the main city, Vizhinjam has been a port in Roman times. If you look at old Latin maps, you will find Vizhinjam mentioned there from 2000 years ago, and therefore, this seafaring tradition, which we are trying to revive with the help and cooperation of the Shipping Minister, in Thiruvananthapuram is, what impels me to welcome this particular Merchant Shipping Bill.

I do want to point out, of course, that the UPA had come up with this Bill in the year 2013. We had actually brought both Bills, the first one in March of 2013 to the Rajya Sabha, and the second one, the Merchant Shipping (Second Amendment) Bill, in August, 2013. At the request of the current Government, it was referred to the Committee. The Committee has come up with some suggestions, and I welcome the fact that the Government has now put them forward for adoption here in the Lok Sabha, as it was already adopted in the Rajya Sabha.

I think the first Amendment Bill, the principal one, frankly requires very little debate. We all agree with Gadkari Ji that the anti-fouling measures that are required are indispensable to modern shipping. We are now much more conscious of the marine environment than we used to be in the old days, and therefore, there was no reference to these concerns in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1958. But today we should indeed respect the importance of these provisions.

I have only two small comments to make, which I hope the Minister will take into account. One is the lack of a sufficient grievance redressal mechanism when you take certain steps against ships, that may be deemed to be not fully in conformity with the Act. The concern I have is, for example, how do we ensure-- for example, if a ship is detained, which in the shipping business costs people a great deal of money--that they could have a quick and expeditious consideration of their case in a grievance redressal mechanism? That does not seem to have been specified in the Bill. Frankly, I think it should have been specified in the Bill, and I would urge the Minister to give that some thought.

          The other point is that both Bills should, of course, be applicable to foreign vessels in Indian waters. There is a great deal of detail that has gone in to describing the conditions of Indian vessels but the concern I have is that there are a number of foreign vessels that come to our waters and we should not assume that all of them will necessarily be adhering to the International Maritime Organization’s Conventions. So, it is essential for us to ensure that once they enter our waters, our legislation applies to them. I will give you one very good example. You may have a lot of ships from developed countries coming in but there are lots of ships flying what are called flags of convenience, the flags of Liberia or Panama or whatever it is. Are those countries signatory to the same standards? Will they uphold the standards that we are now expecting Indian vessels to uphold? If not, will the Government please ensure that something is done to ensure not only that they come under the ambit of the Act but that any transgression by them is adequately punished? There are penalties which should be sufficiently high to have a deterrent effect on foreign vessels conducting any abuse in our waters. I would urge the Government to pay some attention to that point.

          Otherwise, I would say that the UPA would have no particular difficulty with this Bill, which we stood behind last year. The second (Amendment) Bill requires a little more consideration. I mentioned the foreign vessels in Indian waters. In the Second (Amendment) Bill, it is not made explicit that the applicability of the Bill which has specified very clearly, ‘ships which navigate exclusively in inland waters, fishing vessels, traditionally built ships like dhows and junks and warships are all exempt.’ It does not say anything one way or the other about foreign vessels. I think it would be better to make it explicit. Of course, you may not need to amend the Act for this. The rules that you issue on the applicability of the provisions, coming out of the Director-General of Shipping, might be quite  adequate to make this very clear.

Similarly, I think there is nothing in the Bill about some rare cases of non-commercial vessels, which are also non-Government vessels. There may be a ship, for example, that becomes a floating hospital in case of some calamity somewhere. How do these laws apply to it? It may not be a Government ship; it may not be at the same time a commercial venture. There should be something specified as to the applicability of this Act in such cases.

          I welcome the respect given to the seafaring community by the addition of the term ‘seafarer’. Any person employed on a sea going ship except warships would be called a seafarer henceforth. That is a very good term. We in Kerala often refer to them as ‘Kadallude Makkal,’ children of the sea. I think that is the way we think of them. They go out traditionally in ships to fish and bring back there the riches of the sea to their families and, of course, to the residents of the State. Therefore, there is an entire tradition of sea-going and seafaring. I am very glad that the term has been recognised in the Bill.

          I do want to come back to the specific provisions of the Bill. The dispute resolution element allows the Shipping Master to settle disputes between seafarers and their employers. The original Act of 1958 said, “They can do this if the disputed amount does not exceed Rs.5000”. Obviously, that is an absurd amount today. So, I agree entirely with the Shipping Minister and his decision to raise the upper limit to Rs.5 lakh and even Rs.10 lakh at the instance of any party to the dispute. But, I should say that this is not enough, Mr. Minister. Gadkri Saheb, I think you should build in a periodic review of this amount so that you do not have to keep coming back to Parliament to amend the Act. Every time that inflation makes these amounts look unrealistic, the Act should not have to be amended. If you build in a committee, for example, that does a periodic review every two years or three years of these amounts, you would not need to amend the Act each time in order to proceed on this.

          Finally, Madam Chairperson, we have noticed that the Bill specifically does one thing which is I think a half step towards the right thing. It allows the minimum age for a child to be employed as an apprentice on a ship to be raised from 15 to 16 and it also ends the gender inequality we had because the old Act had implied that only boys could be engaged, now girls can also be engaged. We should recognize it because, of course, there in today’s world just as India has been proud to produce amongst the first female pilots in the world and female achievers in various fields, we can have female seafarers as well. I see no problem with that. But, my curiosity about this is that you have gone ahead Mr. Minister and talked about conformity with international standards, the International Labour Conventions and the Maritime Labour Conventions. What about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? It is because the fact is that the UN Convention actually defines a child as being up to the age of 18 years. In other words, if you are going to put people to work at the age of 16 or between 16 and 18, you are actually guilty of child labour, which is something our Government is supposed to be against. We are trying to rehabilitate them. We have just seen a Nobel Prize being awarded to Kailash Satyarthi for his yeoman struggle against child labour in this country. Are we going to pass an Act today that legitimises child labour on our ships? It seems to me that this requires a serious thinking by the Government. If we are going to be conforming to the international standards, then the standard is 18 and not 16. The old fashioned Act of 1958, which specified it as 15, should certainly be amended. But, it should be amended to 18 and not to 16. That would bring us fully in conformity with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as well and we should not forget that.

          Madam Chairperson, these are the simple five specific suggestions that I wish to convey to our Shipping Minister. We have been very proud of the fact that unlike what we have seen over the last 10 years, we do not believe in opposition for the sake of opposition. We have supported this Bill. We have considered the amendments correct. We consider it necessary and, therefore, we are prepared constructively to support it. But, we would be grateful if the Government takes into account some of these constructive suggestions that have been made in this process. 

          Thank you.