SCI in a spot over possible security pass misuse

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on October 30, 2011:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/sci-in-a-spot-over-possible-security-pass-misuse/328042.html

CHENNAI: Barely a few weeks away from the third anniversary of (26/11) Mumbai attacks, sailing community in the west coast has issued an early warning to the national carrier Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) on a possible misuse of security passes issued by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) to SCI’s sailors to gain entry into its high-security off-shore oil installations.

According to sources, ONGC has hired the services of SCI to maintain its 30-odd offshore support vessels (OSVs) used for highly secured oil platforms and rigs. The SCI has utilised the services of seafarers to run those vessels and all of them were given special security passes by the ONGC (after proper endorsement by the SCI) for entry and exit from its facilities.

While the SCI claims to have a foolproof system to maintain records about issuance of security passes to hundreds of seafarers working with the oil major’s OSVs, one of the seafarers union alleged that the SCI failed to track all those passes issued earlier and that were still with the workers even after completing their contract with the ONGC.

“Given the callous attitude of SCI, we see a new but credible threat to ONGC’s oil installations,” a member of a well-known seafarers union told Express seeking anonymity. “If the security passes get into the hands of anti-nationals, nobody knows what would happen to the oil rigs,” the member warned.

The union also demanded that the system of depositing the security passes while signing off from ONGC contract be introduced, so that the threat perception could be neutralised.

When contacted, a senior SCI official in Mumbai rubbished all these news as mere rumours by a section of seafarers.

Kailash Gupta, SCI’s director (Personnel and Admin), said, “We have all records of seafarers who were given special security passes, vessel-wise and crew-wise in the past and ONGC is also in the possession of those details for cross verification.”