India's government has halted a plan by shipmanagers to fly crew back to India on charter flights.
The group of eight companies had arranged to bring seafarers home from overseas using SpiceJet planes flying from Doha in Qatar to Mumbai.
But the government refused permission on Saturday, the Business Line newspaper reported.
Crew looking to join vessels would have flown out, and those looking to return would have boarded the return flight.
A flight planned for Sunday was due to carry 90 people out from Mumbai and bring 180 back. These were Indian crew employed by Carnival Corp.
The directorate general of shipping (DGS) had given permission, but the Ministry of External Affairs had nixed the plan, causing the Indian embassy in Doha to stop the flight.
Crew changes have been made extremely difficult by coronavirus lockdowns.
"This is a cumbersome process and the government is confused and cannot work on timelines," said Sanjay Prashar, managing director of manager VR Maritime Services.
'Carriers' not 'warriors'
"The Indian government, after 65 days of lockdown, cannot even make a procedure and they have failed miserably on crew change in foreign countries and bringing back stranded seafarers. They have treated seafarers as corona carriers and not as corona warriors."
MMS Maritime (India) has run the only chartered flight so far, from Bangalore to Colombo on 16 May, to move 50 Indian seafarers to Sri Lanka to crew South Korean newbuildings.
TradeWinds reported last week that manager Anglo-Eastern completed its largest single crew change in India since the nationwide coronavirus lockdown began two months ago.
The Hong Kong shipmanager said 34 Indian crew members were involved in the 26 May operation — 17 off and 17 on — at Kochi on the south-western coast.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Covid-19 restrictions and the drastic reduction of air traffic have reportedly prevented more than 200,000 seafarers from making routine changeovers.
ICS secretary general Guy Platten said last week: "We’re receiving alarming reports of seafarers who are suffering from serious medical injury such as a stroke [being] denied medical evacuation for over four days. This is simply not acceptable."
