E Arun & Tarun Kartick
Port Blair, Apr 25: Recently Andaman Sheekha carried a report in which a 52 year old lady got serious injuries when she was trying to enter the DSS gate to get tickets for Vizag on April 08, 2013. The lady got her ankle fractured while she struggling to enter the DSS gate when the gates were opened by IRBn Jawans deputed at the gate. There was a stampede when the gates were opened and the crowd behind her went mad and almost crushed her.
Now it seems that the Administration has learnt no lesson from the past mistakes. On 24th and 25th April 2013 nights, again it was found by Andaman Sheekha team that hundreds of people reached Marine Gate at evening hours and waited for whole night so that they could reach the ticket counter first, when the gates are opened. At morning again there was almost a stampede like situation to reach to the ticketing counter from the main gate. Luckily no one was injured this time.
It has now become almost a trend and one night before distribution of tickets one can see general public sitting on the roads like beggars for whole night.
After last accident when Andaman Sheekha team had contacted the Director of Shipping Services Capt. Rajender Kumar said “We are very sorry that such accident occurred.” But sadly despite feeling ‘sorry’ the Director has taken no visible steps to solve this problem.
Andaman Sheekha contacted the Deputy Director Shipping Services to get an answer on why the problem of early queue are not solved but the Deputy Director Shipping Mr. R Veeraiah preferred to direct Andaman Sheekha to meet the Director for this answer. However, later it is found that the Director is out of station and hence there was no one to give answers to public’s questions in Shipping Department.
Public fears that after media report the Administration will deploy more police jawans to drive away people from the DSS gate at night but is that the only answer to this problem? The Administration must ensure that sufficient number ships are plying between Port Blair and Mainland India so that the demand for ship tickets reduces automatically. There is also a need to streamline the ticketing system so that people doesn’t have to wait for whole night like beggars and fight in the morning like dogs to reach the ticketing counter.
Perhaps the Administration is waiting for few more accidents and some deaths before taking any preventive measures for safety of general public.
