Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Dec 27: Frequent breakdowns of vehicle ferry vessels in Middle Strait is causing huge delay to ATR commuters and also causing a lot of inconvenience.
Ideally, three vehicle ferries are operated in Middle Strait by the Shipping Services, as the Middle Strait route is far busy than Humphery Strait. Among three one, vehicle ferry, is usually kept as standby and during rush hours, the third vehicle ferry is operated.
But it has been observed that since past many weeks, only two vehicle ferries, MV Kadamtala and MV North Bay are being operated in Middle Strait, out of which often one vehicle ferry is suffering breakdown, leaving only one vehicle ferry for Middle Strait.
This causes huge delay to ATR commuters. In recent past twice MV Kadamtala suffered breakdown and on 24 December again MV Kadamatala suffered one more breakdown and on 25 December MV North Bay suffered breakdown, causing delay to ATR commuters.
When contacted, a senior officer of Shipping Services told Andaman Sheekha that the department is aware of the problems of the ATR commuters and the Shipping Services also wants to maintain three vehicle ferries at Middle Strait but presently due to routine maintenance Austin-V, vehicle ferry has been brought back to Port Blair and once the maintenance works are over, the vehicle ferry will be sent back to Middle Strait.
“Presently the load on ATR is less and before normal traffic is allowed in ATR we wanted to make sure that the maintenance work of Austin V is completed, so that it can handle the pressure of ATR traffic,” he said.
The senior officer said that once the Kadamtala Bridge is opened for traffic, the Shipping Services will get two spare vehicle ferry vessels, which are presently being operated at Humphery Strait and then there will be no such problems.
He said that a dedicated maintenance team has been posted in Middle Andaman to repair vehicle ferries as soon as possible, after every breakdown. “The Shipping Services is trying level best to keep ATR open as we are fully aware that ATR is life-line of Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” he added.
