The Directorate General of Shipping (DG Shipping) plans to debar seafarers who allegedly secured qualification certificates without attending classes, from sailing for as much as five years.

India’s maritime administration issued show cause notices to 3,762 seafarers (mainly general-purpose staff or ratings) on September 28 for securing such fake certifica tes.

BusinessLine reported the bogus certificates issued by maritime training institutes on October 21.

While the DG Shipping is verifying the responses submitted by the seafarers, it has categorised the offenders into three categories for enforcing penal action.

Those suo moto accepting that they got the certificates without attending classes, will not be allowed to sail for six months.

Seafarers admitting that they received the certificates without attending classes after being issued the show cause notices by the DG Shipping, will not be allowed to sail for one year.

While those who are not accepting or denying it but after a forensic examination, the DG Shipping establishes that the certificates were secured without attending classes, such seafarers will not be allowed to sail for five years.

Those candidates who can show evidence of attendance will not be penalised, a government official said.

“This will send the right signal to all the stake holders in the maritime training sector. The training institutes and the students will fall in line. Institutes will not issue certificates to students without attending classes,” the official said.

It was not possible for the DG Shipping to keep track of the malpractices in the absence of an e-governance system. “With the e-governance system now in place, we will get to know about the admissions and attendance because biometric attendance has been made compulsory,” he said adding that the maritime administration was moving towards a system of issuing e-certificates to students to check irregularities.