Policy-To-Practice Gap in Occupational Mental Health Management For Indian Seafarers: A Critical Review of Regulatory and Organizational Interventions

Abstract

Psychological distress among Indian seafarers has drawn sustained scholarly and regulatory attention over the past decade, driven by evidence of elevated depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms, and by India's position as the nationality most frequently subject to seafarer abandonment worldwide. From a management perspective, this represents an occupational health governance problem spanning three organizational actors: the regulator (India's Directorate General of Shipping, or DG Shipping), employing shipping companies and crewing agencies, and international labour bodies such as the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF). Each has taken visible steps since 2024, including amendments to the Merchant Shipping (Medical Examination) Rules and a 2025 DG Shipping-ITF collaboration on mental health training, but these interventions have not been examined together as a management system. This narrative-critical review pursues two objectives: first, to evaluate how far India's regulatory and organizational interventions engage with the documented forms and drivers of seafarer psychological stress; second, to identify specific implementation gaps across policy design, employer practice, and inter-agency coordination, and to propose managerial and policy recommendations for closing them. Two review propositions are examined: that the regulatory response references psychological fitness only in general terms without a named, validated instrument, an assigned organizational owner, or a published baseline (H1); and that current interventions, being pre-joining and examination-based, do not extend to post-abandonment psychological distress or place any corresponding obligation on employers and crewing agencies, despite India's disproportionate abandonment burden (H2). Both propositions are supported by the evidence reviewed. Recommendations span regulatory design, employer-level occupational health management, and independent policy evaluation.