Ganesh & Savita Kumari
Port Blair, Dec 05: The Baratang Tourist Fiber Boat Owners Association (BTFBOA) today began an indefinite peaceful protest at Baratang Jetty to press various long pending demands of the Association. As per information received the protest started this morning and the BTFBOA will reportedly continue the protest till their demands are fulfilled.
According to the BTFBOA, starting from the new season the number of tourists coming to Baratang are not even 30% of their boat carrying capacity. They are already been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The President of BTFBOA Mr. R Senthil Kumar informed the media that the main demands are to reinstate the Convoys at Jirkatang & Middle Strait as per Pre-Covid-19.
The Boat Owner Association demands to remove the limit of vehicles in each convoy, which is restricting tourist footfall in Baratang Island.
The BTFBOA is demanding to revoke the mandate of taking 1-day prior permission from concerned Deputy Commissioners of South and North & Middle Andaman.
The DC Office Mayabunder takes more than 4 months each time for registration/renewal of our fiber boats and hence the BTFBOA is demanding to expedite the process and also to introduce one-time Registration of Fiber Boat at DC Office Mayabunder.
The President of BTFBOA further mentioned that the berthing charges for Existing Boat ((The vessel which was made before implementation of the Inland Vessel Act 2016 of Andaman) is a serious pain. In Baratang it was stopped from operation in the Year since 2019. “Many boat operators have not even registered or renewed their boats after the introduction of the Andaman IV Act 2016. But the Port Management Board, Port Blair is in the interest of taking birthing charges from everyone including the boats which are dead since 2016. Every time we the boat owners are being blackmailed to pay respective charges by restricting our new boat from getting registered/ renewed,” The President of BTFBOA imformed.
