Vimramaditya & John Wilbert
Port Blair, Dec 28: During the time of need when the flight fares was soaring sky high, the shipping services was unable to schedule a ship for Mainland India, perhaps because there is no Ship, available in Andaman for Mainland sailing.
In the month of December 2021, Islanders witnessed flight fares as high as Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 55,000, which is clearly unaffordable for most of the Islanders.
After the decommissioning of MV Harshavardhan, MV Akbar, MV Nicobar and MV Nancowry there are one vessel, MV Swaraj Dweep, available for mainland sector, which was sent for repair in December 2020 but it did not return back to Andamans even after one long year.
Sadly MV Campbell Bay vessel, which is also capable of sailing in Mainland Sector, is also not available at present.
When Contacted a senior officer of Directorate of Shipping Services, who does not want his name to be quoted told Andaman Sheekha that the ship MV Swaraj Dweep was sent to Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL), Visakhapatnam for annual maintenance in December 2020 but due to COVID-19 the work was delayed.
“Now we have information that by the end of January 2022 the ship will be ready and will reach Andamans,” he added.
Earlier it was a common practice to provide ships for pilgrims for Sabarimala and Om Shakti Pilgrimages but this year even after requests raised, no ship could be scheduled yet for the pilgrims.
Islanders, who can’t afford flight tickets for mainland are hugely disappointed for non availability of mainland vessels.
Recently there was news in National media that Government has decided to hand over MV ATAL and MV ASHOKA ships, which were built for Andaman, to Indian Navy as government feels Andaman has no need for such vessels. One wonders, how government can decide that there is no need of bigger ships for Andaman, when there is no mainland ship available in Andaman for mainland sailing, since last several months.
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