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Jakarta (ANTARA News) - State-owned shipping company PT Pelni said about 30 percent of passengers carried by its ships in each departure were stowaways.

"We don`t have exact data but it is about 30 percent," PT Pelni Spokesman Edy Heryadi said here on Tuesday.

He said in order to solve the problem his side would apply a check-in system such as the one applied at the airport before the departure of passengers.

"We will apply the check-in system as a tryout in 10 seaports this year such as the Tanjung Perak in Surabaya, Soekartno-Hatta in Makassar and Belawan in Medan," he said.

He said that with the system passengers would be requested to embark on the ships 2 to 4 hours before the ships departure.

"Passengers` identity cards and tickets would be checked. If their identities do not match their tickets, they would not be allowed to embark on the ships," he said.

He said that Pelni served 92 ports in Indonesia with 114 routes. It operated 26 passenger ships and 4 roro (roll-on-roll-off) ships with a capacity of 500 to 3,000 passengers.

This year, PT Pelni is awarded an operation subsidy in the form of Public Service Obligation (PSO) worth Rp850 billion from the government.

The number of Pelni`s passengers so far is about 4 million people annually.

Source