Roni Antony, John Wilbert & Avinash Shahi
Port Blair, Apr 23: The sailing of MV Campbell Bay today was delayed by nearly eight hours, causing huge sufferings to passengers, especially children and old people.
According to details, the ship was scheduled to sail for Campbell Bay today at 10.00 AM but without any proper communication from the DSS side it got delayed and delayed and finally the people, who were waiting in the long queues since morning 8:00 AM, got the information that it will sail at 6:00 PM.
The passengers were made to wait but without any facilities like drinking water, air conditioners and the most importantly, without proper communication.
The families with children had a terrible time, even water bottles were being sold at Rs 40, the people complained about the dirty toilets and lack of drinking water.
Although no DSS officials were available for a comment in this regard at Haddo wharf, sources told Andaman Sheekha that the delay was due to refueling.
“This is shameful and utterly unprofessional from the part of Shipping Services. We the passengers were made to suffer like cattle,” complained a passenger.
Whatever might be the reasons, this was the duty of DSS to communicate the passengers properly about the problems and also the DSS should have taken care of food, water and availability of clean toilets for passengers in this case, say passengers.
