Russian Gov't eases licensing rules for sea, inland shipping
Amendments to safety requirements intended to simplify considerably the licensing procedure of transportation of passengers, dangerous goods, of towing and cargo operations with dangerous goods by sea-going and inland waterway transport in Russia come into force as from 24 August 2016, the Ministry of Transport said in a press release.
The Russian Government's resolution (Aug. 10, 2016 № 778, "On amending the Russian Government resolution dated March 6, 2012 № 193") becoming effective Aug. 24 brings to conformity with current legislation the requirements to license applicants in the maritime and inland waterway transport.
An officer responsible for ensuring the safe operation of vessels on inland waterways, now is the same person as provided for in accordance with the Inland Water Transport Code of the Russian Federation (KVVT) in the safe vessel operation management system. Such officer is the designated person in accordance with the International Safety Management Code (ISM Code) for sea-going transport.
The amendments clarify that the requirements of technical regulations are subject to review while licensing only if the technical regulations applicable to licensed objects (in particular, technical regulations shall not be applied to objects that had become operated in the territory of the Russian Federation before the relevant regulation came into force).
In line with the amendments to the Merchant Shipping Code and Inland Water Transport Code the list of vessel and other documents has been updated required to be submitted by the licensee and introduced the requirement to provide insurance documents (or other financial security) of civil liability for damage to life and health of crew members and passengers (where applicable).
The rules were also significantly simplified for small boats for all licensed operations. Now to obtain a license for small boat operation it is enough to present to the licensing authority, in addition to the documents required on licensing certain types of activities, an application, the ship's ticket (mentioning the boat's future operations), insurance documents (or other financial security) of liability for damage to life and health of the crews and passengers (for passenger transport), documents of captains of small vessels for the crew members, certified to handle small boats.
As the small size ship is used for commercial purposes, she must be registered with the Harbormaster's office or with the Authority of Inland Waterways Basin. Small crafts in the register of Russia's Emergencies Ministry are not subject to licensing.
Regulations on the licensing require that each inland waterways vessel is to have a ship plan for oil pollution prevention, provided for in Article 39 of Inland Waterways Transport Code. However, by the order of the Ministry of Transport of Russia (18/03/2014, No 72) the requirement of an emergency spill response plan has been canceled for small vessels. Therefore operators of small boats to obtain a license are not required to provide a license are not required to provide the emergency spill response plan.
The licensee may submit the package of application and relevant documents to the licensing authority in electronic format with computer-generated signature of the license applicant.
The updated licenses rules canceled inspection by the licensing authority officers in order to verify the licensing vessel. Licensing inspection may be carried out in the form of desk audit.
