Mohammed Sajid
Port Blair, July 15: As many as 239 passengers were stranded inside MV Chowra today for more than 10 hours because of dispute over fitness of the vessel among a few crew members of the vessel and officials.
According to reports MV Chowra, a passenger vessel, owned by Shipping Services but managed by Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), was about to sail for Nicobar District from Haddo Port at 8.00 AM today for which passengers had boarded the ship by 7.00 AM but just before sailing some crew members raised objections over fitness of the ship and refused to sail.
Sources confirmed that the objections were raised by three crew members during the last minute survey by MMD Surveyor, who reportedly had already given green signal for sailing by issuing Certificate ‘B’. The crew members who raised objections are Deck Sarang, Engine Sarang and the Carpenter of the vessel.
Following objections raised by these crew members the high and dry authority called the IRS surveyor for final word, who also gave green signal for the sailing after some repair works but still crew refused to cooperate and said that it is dangerous to sail with the ship in Nicobar route.
According to reports, finally when MMD surveyor re-inspected the ship and issued the Certificate ‘B’ for the second time in the day, the crew members had no other option than allowing the vessel to sail at 5.00 PM with all passengers.
By that time passengers had gone through hell inside the ship. Passengers who were waiting since morning for the ship to sail did not even get proper food.
“Without announcement they issued token for lunch and 75 percent of passengers did not get food in the afternoon. Later when we protested they gave us food nearly at 4.00 pm,” a passenger said.
Lot of passengers came out of ship at around 3.30 pm and protested against such delay in sailing. Nearly 15 people went back to home and did not sail today in MV Chowra.
Though it is good that crew members raised questions over condition of the sick ship but the timing for raising such objections raise many questions and lead to inconvenience of passengers.
“Even if there is some safety issues the crew members must have complained via proper channel or intimate earlier. The ship was on port since last two days and in these two days no one pointed out about the problems,” said a source.
Internal sources told Andaman Sheekha that many crew members are unwilling to sail for Nicobar District as that sailing takes eight long days to continue. It is after nearly one month MV Chowra was sent to Nicobar District following heavy demand from business community of Campbell Bay for the vessels because of its cargo capacity.
“Perhaps the crew members thought by raising objection at the last moment they will be able to cancel this sailing, which did not happen,” sources added.
