IB verification at Port irks cruise tourists

KOCHI: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has enhanced immigration clearance procedures for cruise passengers arriving at Kochi port. The IB has introduced face-to-face clearance of the passport of each passenger arriving on cruise vessels. The IB has taken a strict stand that departure and arrival clearance would be issued only after face-to face verification.   Though the passengers have protested against the the face-to-face clearance, the immigration officials are of the view that it is essential for safety reasons. “Since the passengers have passed immigration clearance to India in Mumbai, the first port of call in the country, the new procedure here is unnecessary, said a senior official working with a shipping agency.  The IB officials maintained that they could complete the immigration clearance of 1,750 passengers in an hour and 30 minutes. “It is true that the tourists have only a few hours to visit different places but considering the maritime security scenario in the country, face-to-face clearance is a must, which was not in place earlier. On Wednesday, cruise vessel Arcadia had berthed at the port with 1,900 passengers and 880 crew members. All of them were cleared in just two hours,” said an IB official with the immigration section at the Kochi port.  The immigration clearance at Kochi port was taken over by the IB in November, 2011, from the state police. When the police was handling the immigration clearance, they collected the travel documents and passports of the passengers and left them for sight seeing. But that system was stopped by the IB.   According to a shipping agent, the time-consuming inspections would adversely affect the fame of Kochi as a much sought-after cruise destination. “Since it is a matter of security what we can do is to ask the shipping lines to advance their berthing time so that the immigration clearance procedure could be completed earlier and the passengers get enough time for sight-seeing. We have started intimating shipping lines in this regard, said Kochi port traffic manager C Unnikrishnan.