DGS Circular 25 of 2026: Rating to ETO Pathway Explained

If you’ve seen someone online claim that “Indian ratings can now become trainee electrical officers because of a circular dated May 19, 2026,” you’ve run into one of the more widely repeated misreadings of a real DGMA document. There is a genuine circular from that date, and it does open a real new pathway for ratings — but the destination it names is not “trainee electrical officer.” It’s something more specific, and understanding the difference matters if you’re planning your career around it.

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The circular, correctly identified

The document in question is DGS (EAC-ENGG) Circular No. 25 of 2026, File No. 13-11031/1/2021-ENGG-DGS, dated May 19, 2026. It was issued by the Directorate General of Shipping — now renamed the Directorate General of Maritime Administration (DGMA) under the Merchant Shipping Act 2025 — from its Mumbai office, and signed by Praveen Nair, Dy. Chief Surveyor cum Sr. DDG (Tech).

Its subject line is “Issuance of Electro-Technical Rating Certificate of Proficiency & progression to ETO certification.” It supersedes the older NT/ENGG Circular No. 2 of 2016 (dated 20/09/2016) and references DGS Training Circular No. 12 of 2020. You can read the original PDF directly on the DGMA website at dgma.gov.in — it’s worth doing if you want to verify any of this yourself rather than relying on secondhand summaries, including this one.

What the circular actually sets up

The circular lays out four entry criteria through which a seafarer can qualify for the Electro-Technical Rating (ETR) Certificate of Proficiency. Three of these are largely relevant to people who already hold some electrical or engineering qualification. The one that matters most to ratings — and the one being misreported — is Criteria IV.

Under Criteria IV, a seafarer who has completed a DGS-approved General Purpose (GP) Rating course — the standard entry-level, non-officer training track most ratings start on — can now also complete a new 10-day Bridging Course in basic electrical functions for seafarers with GP Ratings course certificate. Completing both of these makes the seafarer eligible to serve onboard as a “Trainee Electro-Technical Rating (Trainee ETR).”

That phrase, “Trainee ETR,” is the circular’s exact language. It is a rating-level designation. It is not “trainee electrical officer,” and treating the two as interchangeable overstates what the circular actually grants.

Why the distinction matters

In the merchant navy’s structure, officers and ratings sit on genuinely separate certification tracks with different responsibilities, different exam requirements, and different career ceilings unless a rating formally bridges across. Calling a GP Rating holder with a 10-day bridging course a “trainee electrical officer” implies they’ve stepped onto the officer track immediately. They haven’t. They’ve stepped onto a new, real, but still rating-level pathway.

This matters practically. If you’re a GP Rating aspirant reading this because you want to know how fast you can become an electro-technical officer, you need the accurate sequence, not the shortcut version that’s circulating on forums and social media. Here’s that sequence as the circular actually lays it out:

1. Complete a DGS-approved GP Rating course.
2. Complete the new 10-day Bridging Course in basic electrical functions.
3. Sail as Trainee ETR.
4. After 12 months’ qualifying sea service as Trainee ETR, receive the ETR Certificate of Proficiency — a rating qualification, not an officer one.
5. Only from ETR can you begin working toward actual ETO (Electro-Technical Officer) certification.

The real distance from ETR to ETO

Reaching ETO from ETR is not a formality — it’s a second, substantial stage with its own sea time and academic requirements. According to the circular, a seafarer needs:

• 24 months of additional qualifying sea service if they do not hold a diploma or degree, or 12 months if they do hold one.
• A separate 4-month DGS-approved pre-sea ETO course.
• DGS written and oral examinations, which must be cleared to actually be certified as an ETO.

Put together, this means the full journey from a GP Rating certificate to an ETO Certificate of Competency involves the GP Rating course itself, the 10-day bridging course, roughly a year at sea as Trainee ETR, the ETR CoP, another one to two years of sea service depending on academic background, a further four-month pre-sea course, and a final round of exams. That’s a meaningful, multi-year career pathway — a genuinely valuable one for a rating who wants to move toward the electro-technical officer track — but it is not an instant jump, and no single circular collapses all of those stages into one step.

One more useful change in the same circular

Separate from the ETR pathway itself, Circular No. 25 of 2026 also explicitly removes the prior age limitation that applied to enrollment in the ETO course. If age eligibility was something holding you back from planning an ETO track in the past, that restriction no longer applies under this circular — worth checking directly against the source PDF if it affects your own planning, since exact wording and any transitional provisions are best confirmed against the primary document rather than a summary.

What this means if you’re a GP Rating holder today

If you already hold a GP Rating certificate, Criteria IV genuinely opens a new, DGMA-recognized route toward electro-technical work that didn’t exist under the 2016 circular it replaces. That’s real and worth pursuing if electrical/electronic work at sea interests you. Just go in with accurate expectations: your first onboard designation under this route is Trainee ETR, your first certificate is the ETR CoP after 12 months, and ETO status remains a further, separate stage requiring its own sea time, course, and exams.

If you’re unsure whether the 10-day bridging course is currently being offered by your training institute, or how this affects a specific sea service record you already have, that’s exactly the kind of detail worth confirming directly with DGMA-approved institutes or your RPSL company rather than guessing from a summary — including this one.

FAQs

Does the May 19, 2026 circular make ratings trainee electrical officers? No. The circular’s exact wording is “Trainee Electro-Technical Rating (Trainee ETR)” — a rating-level title, not an officer title. This is the most common misreading of the circular circulating online.

What is Criteria IV in DGS Circular No. 25 of 2026? It is the entry route for GP Rating course holders: complete a DGS-approved General Purpose Rating course plus a new 10-day Bridging Course in basic electrical functions, and you become eligible to sail as a Trainee ETR.

How does a Trainee ETR eventually become an ETO? First, 12 months’ qualifying sea service as Trainee ETR earns the ETR Certificate of Proficiency. From there, reaching ETO requires additional sea service (24 months without a diploma, 12 months with one), a separate 4-month DGS-approved pre-sea ETO course, and DGS written and oral examinations.

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