Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Jan 12: Once again due to poor maintenance and failure to keep ships seaworthy, out of nearly eight ships only three ships viz MV Nalanda, MV Dering and MV Bharat Seema are presently available for Nicobar District.
Sadly among these three ships MV Nalanda can’t berth at Car Nicobar and hence it can only sail for Nancowry and Campbell Bay while MV Bharat Seema is pressed into service for Car Nicobar and Hut Bay. Meanwhile, MV Dering, which is in a pathetic shape, has been scheduled for Diglipur and Mayabunder region.
In a nutshell for Nancowry and Great Nicobar we have only one ship i.e. MV Nalanda, for Car Nicobar and Hut Bay we have only MV Bharata Seema, which is giving nightmares to passengers of Car Nicobar and Hut Bay.
A senior officer of DSS had recently told Andaman Sheekha that new ship MV Sindhu although fit, can’t sail for any Islands as there is a problem in the bow thruster of the ship and hence it can’t negotiate well while berthing in Jetties of remote Island without help of a Tugboats.
Presently, MV Sindhu is sailing between Port Blair and Mainland as in both the ports Tug Boats are available.
MV Campbell Bay which was operational till last month has gone out of service after there were some faults in the TurboCharger of the ship. Now the ship is waiting for some parts from Japan for repair, which might take some time.
MV Sentinel is presently at Kolkata for repair works while MV Chowra, which is presently at Port Blair, is also waiting for some major repairs. MV Kalighat as already reported by Andaman Sheekha has been sent to Cochin more than one month back but the ship is still waiting for major repairs.
The technical management of all the ships in Andaman and Nicobar Islands run by DSS is handled by SCI and now the SCI must come in open and inform the public why most of the ships of Andaman and Nicobar Administration are out of service. This must be noted that none of the officials of SCI in Port Blair talks to the media and they also do not share a number of their senior officers in mainland to media person.
The General Public of Nicobar District are requesting the Chief Secretary to intervene in this matter and hold an open meeting with SCI in presence of the media so that the General Public can understand what has gone wrong in Shipping Services.
It’s essential to run suitable vessel to Carnicobar preferably MV Kalighat frequently. As mentioned above vessel is under repair , the same may be carried out under warfoot.