With eye on NSG membership, India mulls a special exemption for China

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meet this month to consider India’s membership bid, India is planning a special exemption for China that will allow its sailors to leave their ships docked in Indian waters.

The Ministry of External Affairs has written to the home ministry seeking exemption so that Chinese sailors can visit the nearby port cities and not remain holed up in their ships. Only a handful of countries on India’s ‘rogue list’, known as prior referral category (PRC), are denied this permission.

China is on that list along with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq among others.

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A senior home ministry official confirmed to ET that a proposal was received from MEA and they were actively considering granting shore leaves to Chinese sailors as per international convention.

For this, the home ministry also plans to rope in the Indian mission in China to get them to upload such requests through an ‘online visa processing’ system immediately for the ministry’s clearance. The seaports that are likely to be covered includes Marmagoa (Goa), Kochi, Calicut, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Nhava Sheva, Chennai and Kolkata.

According to international norms, a mariner is not required to hold a visa for shore leave. “Therefore, one of the proposals is to issue a visa-on arrival, which will be endorsed on their national passport only and not on the crew member certificate,” explained a senior official requesting anonymity.

The official further added: “The period of the leave can vary from a couple of days to a week’s time, depending on the ship’s schedule.” In the past, there were many cases where the Chinese sailors were allowed leave for a few hours, but only in special cases.

The move comes at a time when India has started a high-level conversation with China to elicit its support for India’s application to become an NSG member.