John Wilbert & Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Oct 11: Non availability of Tug boats with Port Management Board has become a serious cause of concern for many.
As per details Port Management Board presently does not have service of any Tug boat of its own, for the movement of big ships.
As it is known to everyone without the assistance of Tug boats it becomes very difficult and dangerous for manoeuvring big ships like LPG carriers and oil tanker ships, which usually come at Port Blair for discharging cargo.
As per information received, the PMB earlier owned tug MT Andaman but the tug boat is presently manned and managed by mainland based Manning agent, the agent had allegedly stopped the service of Tug because of non-payment of salary since last four months.
Another hired tug boat has stopped it service to PMB for not extending contract. Now PMB is on the mercy of naval Tug boats, which is not available all the time.
To know the complete detail about this issue and verify the facts Andaman Sheekha Daily reporter visited office of Director of Shipping Services, who is also holding the charge of Chief Port Administrator of PMB, for more than five times but the DSS remained unavailable for a comment in this regard. Even junior officers were unavailable for any comment in this regard.
Port running without any Tug boat of PMB is a serious issue and when officials remain unavailable to comment on such issues, it shows how serious the concerned department is about safety of ships.
