Ministry opens online registration for ships and boats
Maritime Affairs Minister Junaid Anwar Chaudhry says applicants should be able to pay registration fees through a single online link within 15 days.
Ship and boat owners can now file registration applications online instead of going to Mercantile Marine Department offices, Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Muhammad Junaid Anwar Chaudhry said on Friday.
The ministry's ship registration and boat registration modules were fully accessible for online applications after the measures needed to run them were completed, the minister said in a statement.
The Mercantile Marine Department, which sits under the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, registers merchant ships, fishing boats, sailing vessels and harbour craft under the Merchant Shipping Ordinance and related laws. Until now that process involved paper forms and a visit to a department office.
Fees are not yet part of the online system. Officials of the department and the State Bank of Pakistan are to meet to discuss connecting an electronic payment mechanism to the registration software. Chaudhry said applicants should be able to pay through a single payment link within 15 days.
He said the change would modernise maritime administration, cut paperwork, save applicants time and money and improve transparency, and would help the ministry keep an updated national database of registered vessels.
According to the statement, a centralised database of fishing boats and their owners could be tied to climate-risk mapping, cyclone early-warning systems and fisheries management. That would help authorities pick out vulnerable fishing communities in coastal areas, improve emergency response and time evacuations during extreme weather events.
The statement did not say how many vessels are registered under the ordinance or how long the department will take to process an online application.
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