DJ Venkatesh
Diglipur, Mar 17: As the Administration has failed the fulfill the long pending demands of residents of Diglipur regarding providing regular and proper ferry service, the residents of Diglipur has now written a letter directly to the Minister of Road Transport Highways & Shipping, Mr. Nitin Gadkari.
The letter has been jointly signed by Vehicle Owners Association, Creek Boat Association, Hotel & Restaurants Association, Shopkeepers Association, Merchant Association, which says that Diglipur is selected by NITI Aayog for the development but due to bad road infrastructure and lack of proper management of ships, Diglipur has failed to attract tourists.
They say that “A ship starting from Port Blair should touch Havelock Island and come to Diglipur (Vice versa) preferable via night sailing. This would connect the entire Andaman in to a tourist Circuit, as the tourist could use one way by ship and the other by road. It would benefit 3/7 days visiting tourists, as they could see the entire Andaman in a short period of time. The letter said that it would also benefit the locals to visit their relatives and farmers/fishermen will get good value for their produce/catch. The letter added that it will also benefit the patients and elderly people.
The letter said that if this tourist circuit comes in to existence then tourist arriving Port Blair can go to Neil and then to Havelock, from Havelock they can take the ship to Diglipur and use the roadway to reach Mayabunder, Rangat, Baratang and then come back to Port Blair, vice versa). “This would increase the tourist arrival and local employment and local entrepreneurships will also get a boost,” the letter added.
Earlier to this Diglipur Association for Rural Tourism and Ecological Development had also requested the administrator and the Shipping minister for the same.
