Goemkaponn Desk
PANAJI: Even as cruise tourism business was hoping to revive, a fresh set of seafarers were offloaded at Mormugao Port Trust ( MPT).
According to Govind D Pernulkar ,Senior Manager at JM Baxi company, Cruise Vessel “Norwegian Encore” ship arrived at MPT and while there were no passengers on board, the cruise vessel got 2533 seafarers of different nationality including 502 Indian crew of which around 250 crew were Goans.
” We offloaded the Indian crew including Goans at this port and while Goans were sent by buses ,Indian crew were sent by Flights. All crew were subject to RTPCR tests and all of them tested negative after which they were sent home. The ship ha come only to offload the crew, some of which were taken last November ” said Pernulkar
Speaking on the cruise tourism, pernulkar said that their company JM Baxi were the highest handlers of cruise vessels in ports.
” We were looking forward to a great business as it looked that tbe cruise tourism would revive. We woukd handle around 40 cruise vessels a year but this year with second wave of Covid hitting Europe and continuous lockdowns, the cruise ships are idle and have no business because of which the crew are being disembarked. We have not received any details of cruise ships for the coming year and we hope something may come from November.” Said Pernulkar
