DGMA Signs MoU to Link Indian Seafarer Certificates with ISF Verify
India’s Directorate General of Maritime Administration (DGMA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and Lloyd’s Register OneOcean to connect Indian seafarer certificates with ISF Verify, a cloud platform for sharing and checking certificates digitally. The agreement, announced on 4 November, was signed during the IMO Council meeting at the International Maritime Organization’s headquarters in London, United Kingdom.
Under the MoU, the three partners will run a pilot to link ISF Verify with India’s national certificate system through a software connection (API). The work will begin with a technical study and a list of requirements, followed by a development roadmap. Once the link is in place, seafarers will be able to add DGMA-issued certificates to the platform and decide who can see them, while the certificates stay under DGMA’s control.
The partners say the system should speed up endorsements by foreign flag states, reduce certificate fraud and may shorten document checks during port inspections. India is the world’s second-largest supplier of seafarers, with about 312,000, according to the ICS/BIMCO Seafarer Workforce Report 2026. Together with the Philippines, whose maritime authority MARINA has already tested the platform, India supplies around 30% of the global seafarer workforce of 2.57 million.
DGMA Additional Director General Sushil Khopde said seafarers will be able to verify their credentials globally “in real-time while maintaining strict national data oversight.”
For Indian seafarers, the pilot could mean fewer delays when joining foreign-flag ships, quicker flag endorsements and less trouble proving that genuine certificates are valid. The project is still at an early stage, so seafarers will need to follow DGMA updates on when the facility becomes available.
For more details, please follow this link on the official DGMA website.
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