348. (1) Where grain is loaded on board any Bangladesh ship or is loaded on board any ship within any port or place in Bangladesh, all necessary and reasonable precautions shall be taken to prevent the grain from shifting; and if such precautions are not taken, the owner or the master of the ship or any agent of the owner who was charged with the loading or with sending the ship to sea laden with grain shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five thousand Taka, and the ship shall be deemed for the purposes of this Part to be unsafe by reason of improper loading.

(2) Where any ship which is loaded with grain outside Bangladesh without all necessary and reasonable precautions having been taken to prevent the grain from shifting, enters any port or place in Bangladesh so laden, the owners or the master of the ship shall be punishable with fine which may extend to Taka ten thousand, and the ship shall be deemed for the purpose of this Part to be unsafe by reason of improper loading:

Provided that this sub section shall not apply to a ship which would not have entered any such port or place but for stress of weather or any other circumstances that neither the master nor the owner nor the charterer, if any, could have prevented or forestalled.

(3) On the arrival at a port or place in Bangladesh from a port or place outside Bangladesh of any ship carrying a cargo of grain, the master shall cause to be delivered at the office of the Principal Officer or to such other officer as may be specified by the Government in this behalf, a notice stating-

(a) the draught of water and free board of the said ship after the loading of the cargo was completed at the final port of loading; and

(b) the following particulars of the grain carried, namely:

(i) the kind of grain and quantity thereof stated in cubic feet, quarters, bushels or tons weight;

(ii) the mode in which the grain is stowed; and

(iii) the precautions taken to prevent the grain from shifting.

(4) If the master fails to deliver the notice required by sub section (3), or if in any such notice makes any statement that he knows it to be false in a material particular, or recklessly makes a statement that is false in a material particular, he shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five thousand Taka.

(5) A Surveyor or any other person authorised in this behalf by general or special order of the Government may, for securing the observance of the provisions of this section, inspect a ship carrying a cargo of grain and the mode in which such cargo is stowed therein.

(6) The Government may make rules prescribing in relation to loading of ships generally or of ships of any class the precautions to be taken, and when such precautions have been prescribed, they shall be treated for the purposes of this section to be included in the expression “necessary and reasonable precautions”.

(7) In this section, the expression “grain” includes wheat, maize, oats, rye, barley, rice, pulses and seeds and processed forms thereof whose behaviour is similar to that of grain in its natural state.