Shipping firms come calling for Punjabis

“A whopping 95 per cent of international trade is based on shipping, but there is an acute shortage of sailors. The shipping industry was caught unawares by the boom and was not training enough cadets. The crisis of depleting numbers of seafarers from the developed world and paying them in Euros has added to the demand for recruits from South-Asian countries. With its large cluster of seafaring families and attraction for the high seas among youth, Punjab is the right place to train and recruit sailors. The need is not only to recruit more but also train more, since the latter is also a stipulation for availing exemption from tonnage tax. In fact, we at the Shipping

Corporation of India (SCI) are training much more than the statuary

requirement,” SCI chairman Sabyasachi Hajara told ENS when he was in Chandigarh recently.

At times when other professions are in the meltdown mode and announcing job and salary cuts, shipping companies are selling dreams to aspiring sailors of a profession where the pay packages keep getting better, enough to retire to golf at the age of 35. “No other profession pays you a salary of Rs 1.3 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh per month at the age of 17 and between USD 10,000 to 15,000 by the time you are 28,” Daniel Chopra, the

Punjabi-Goan owner of Doehle Danautic, Indian partner of Germany-based Peter Doehle, which owns and operates a fleet of over 485 vessels worldwide, says.

The most recent one to announce its plans to launch its flagship recruitment and training centre in Punjab, Danautic is looking at wooing rural Punjabi youth with an assured job on his own fleet of ships.

“We believe that the future of shipping is in the north, mainly areas in and around Punjab. The right mix of temperament, physique and attitude makes Punjabis a great choice as sailors. Since most of our trainees are from Punjab and around, we are looking at coming to the state in a big way,” says A. Rewari of Applied Research International.

However, though the good salaries and “no-hardcore academics” are the initial attractions, many young sea officers do not see merchant navy as a career destination. “I did not have to do an MBA to get into the merchant navy and to that six-digit figure salary. I sail for four to six months in a year and make between USD 8,000 to 9,000 per month. The remaining six months are for unwinding and some golf. I may move on to some other profession after a few years of sailing,” says Harman Mangat, a Chandigarh-based young sea officer, son of a retired merchant navy officer. Others like Prabhjit Singh, Tarun Ahluwalia and Pranav Anand too plan to move on.

More so since the lows can also not be endured for long, adds Pranav’s wife Sheila Anand, a marine journalist. “It’s not just the wives, isolation disturbs men equally. Thankfully, shipping companies are now bringing in a more human touch and sailors are being provided facilities to connect to their families in the middle of the high seas in any part of the world via Internet and satellite communication.”