TEAM HERALD
VASCO: Lambasting the State government for not resolving long pending issue faced by the seamen, president of Goan Seamen Association of India, Dickson Vaz has demanded its immediate intervention to simplify procedures to allow the family members and relatives of Goan seafarers to board the cruise liners and meet their loved ones, when the vessels visit Mormugao Port. Failing this, the Seamen association would not vote for the BJP government in future, they threatened.
According to Vaz, every time any cruise liner visits Goa, the family members and relatives of Goan seafarers, who work on cruise liners keeps their fingers crossed with the hope that at least this time they would get an opportunity to meet their loved ones. However, due to lack of coordination and miscommunication between concerned agencies, the family members as well as seamen working onboard the ships, go away disappointed.
“Every time we have to follow lengthy procedures. We have made several requests to the government with the demand to communicate with MPT for simplifying procedures so that the seamen can meet their families. But as the government is insensitive to the issue, many relatives had to come back without meeting their loved ones. Also we are disappointed with the lengthy process of the port authorities and where one has to run from one place to another to receive the entry passes at gate number 9,” Vaz told with a warning that “we will not vote for the BJP next election, if we are forced to face similar hardships in future”.
Vaz also said, “On an average 75 to 200 crew members are working on various cruise vessels, are from Goa. But unfortunately they find it difficult to meet their family members when the cruise liners dock at Mormugao and thus MPT should go in for a single-window system to allocate entry passes to the family members of the crew”.
While the issue of miscommunication is yet to be addressed, the Seamen’s association has also requested that the MPT officials should not berth cruise liners at berth number nine, as this berth is full of pollution and heavy vehicles traffic that can be dangerous to the passengers and others.
