John Wilber & Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, Feb 07: Fiber Boat Operators of Baratang Island have expressed their discontent over alleged high port charges, they have been slapped with, by the Port Management Board.
According to reports some Fiber Boat operators have been charged with port charges of more than Rs. 20,000 for past one year, which, according to the boat operators, is astronomically high.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, the Zilla Parishad member of Baratang Island, Mr. Alagar Swamy today said that port charges are not collected by PMB on daily or monthly basis and hence when at the time of renewal of permit when the port charges are slapped for previous years, the amount appears so high that it becomes impossible for small boat operators to pay.
Mr. Alagar Swami demanded that the PMB should take port charges every day or month from Baratang Boat Operators and also should think of reducing the port charges as there is no proper port for these Fiber boats.
“For all fiber boat operators only a floating jetty has been provided and one wonders how come PMB charge so high Port Charges for such jetty,” Mr. Alagar Swamy added.
When contacted the Chief Port Administrator, Dr RD Tripathy today said that port charges of Rs 50 a day is not a heavy amount. As per reports, the Port Management Board has started collecting Port Charges from the Baratang Fiber Boat owners from this year and because of this an additional burden of Rs 18-20k, that too every year, has added to the woes of the Baratang Fiber Boat Owners.
However when he came to know about the problems, he assured the Fiber Boat owners of Baratang through Andaman Sheekha that from this month the PMB will collect the port charges on monthly basis.
“As we don’t have an office at Baratang, we will send a staff of the department every month for the inspection and for collecting the port charges,” Dr Tripathy said.
However Dr Tripathy maintained that port charges Rs 50 per day is not a high amount as Port Charges should actually be collected for every hour which is not the case in Baratang for Fiber Boat Owners. Dr Tripathy also said that as most of the Fiber Boats at Baratang are small, the present jetty is enough for them.
