Gov­ern­ment’s push to mod­ernise mar­itime op­er­a­tions moved a step clos­er to full roll­out this week, as the Sail Clear sys­tem was placed un­der live test­ing at Ch­aguara­mas, pro­cess­ing in­com­ing cruis­ers in re­al time.

Min­is­ter of Trade, In­dus­try and Tourism, Satyaka­ma "Kar­ma" Ma­haraj, said he was on site to ob­serve the first live test of the sys­tem, de­scrib­ing it as a ma­jor shift away from out­dat­ed man­u­al pro­ce­dures in the mar­itime sec­tor.

Sail Clear is an elec­tron­ic no­ti­fi­ca­tion plat­form used by yachts and plea­sure craft op­er­a­tors to sub­mit Cus­toms de­c­la­ra­tions pri­or to ar­rival, re­plac­ing tra­di­tion­al pa­per-based doc­u­men­ta­tion.