316. Issue of load line certificates and effect thereof.- (1) Where an Indian ship has been surveyed and marked in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this Part and complies with the conditions of assignment to the extent required in her case by those provisions, there shall be issued to the owner of the ship on his application and on payment of the prescribed fee-- (a) in the case of a ship of one hundred and fifty tons gross or more which carries cargo or passengers, a certificate to be called "an international load line certificate"; and (b) in the case of any other ship, a certificate to be called "an Indian load line certificate". (2) Every such certificate shall be issued either by the Central Government or by such other person as may be authorised in that behalf by the Central Government and shall be issued in such form and manner as may be prescribed by the load line rules. (3) The Central Government may request the Government of a country to which the Load Line Convention applies, to issue a load line certificate in the form of an international load line certificate under that Convention in respect of an Indian ship and a certificate issued in pursuance of such a request and containing a statement that it has been so issued shall have effect for the purposes of this Part as if it had been issued by the Central Government. (4) Where a load line certificate, issued in pursuance of this section and for the time being in force, is produced in respect of a ship, the ship shall, for the purposes of the foregoing provisions of this Part, be deemed to have been surveyed as required by those provisions, and if the deck line and load lines on the ship are of the number and description required by the load line rules and the position of the deck line and load lines corresponds with the position specified in the certificate, the ship shall be deemed to be marked as required by those provisions | 
