1 lakh crew has been facilitated in Indian ports through charted flight
Ministry of Shipping has facilitated more than 1,00,000 crew change on Indian ports through charter flights. It is the highest number of crew changes in the world. Crew change consists of replacing one of the ship’s crew members with another one and involves sign-on the ships and sign-off the ship's procedures.

August 24, New Delhi: The maritime sector is among the worst-hit sectors due to Corona pandemic. Despite that, all the Indian Ports were operational and providing essential services throughout the pandemic and the main pillar for the smooth supply chain for India and the world were the seafarers. Seafarers had to suffer due to the closing of Sign-on & Sign-off and lockdowns and movement restrictions imposed by the various countries worldwide.
Union Minister of State (I/C) for Shipping, Mansukh Mandaviya has appreciated the continued efforts done by the DG, Shipping during the briefing, especially for facilitating the stranded seafarer during this difficult time. Minister instructed DG Shipping to come up with robust grievances redress mechanism to facilitate the seafarers. He has strongly emphasized to ensure that seafarers should be able to approach the ministry during a difficult time and no seafarer should suffer due to poor grievance redress system.

To sustain the maritime transportation during the pandemic situation, DG Shipping has taken various initiatives like extensions of various certificates required for sailing, Online E-pass facility for travel etc.
DG, Shipping Amitabh Kumar added-
An online utility has been created for verification of seafarers for charted flights and for uploading details of stranded seafarers along with online ship registrations and online charter licensing