John Wilbert & Saurabh Singh
Port Blair, June 29: Hundreds of ship passengers travelling to Campbell Bay faced a great deal of hardship due to a delay in the scheduled sailing of MV Campbell Bay by nearly six hours Today.
While waiting for check-in from the front security gate of Haddo Jetty it caused huge suffering to the passengers, especially to the children and old people.
According to details, the ship was scheduled to sail for Campbell Bay via Nancowrie today at 12:00 noon but people who were waiting in the long queues since morning 08:00 am got the sudden information that it will sail at 06:00 pm.
Around 500 passengers arrived early at the Haddo Jetty gate to check their names in the Covid negative list, which was displayed in the open area outside security room gate no. 03.
Passengers alleged that they faced huge inconvenience due to the single display of the list for all the passengers. In addition to that, heavy rain in the morning hours made the whole process more miserable for the passengers as many were completely drenched and their luggage was also wet in the rain. Worst hit were those, who were travelling with kids.
After verification when passengers went to acquire the tickets, due to link problems, passengers were forced to wait further in the long queue.
At around 10:30 am the ticket counter started issuing the tickets to passengers but due to frequent link problems it took around 03 hrs for all the passengers to acquire the tickets, it is reported. The passengers were made to wait without proper facilities like drinking water, air conditioners and most importantly, without any proper communication.
The families with children had a terrible time and they also raised the concern about the dirty toilets and lack of drinking water.
“This is utterly unprofessional on the part of the Port Management board as they left passengers suffering like this,” complained a passenger.
Andaman Sheekha reporter visited the PMB office but no Port Management Board officials were available for a comment in this regard. Sources told Andaman Sheekha that the delay was due to refuelling issues. When Andaman Sheekha tried to contact CPA but no appointment was given even after making multiple requests.
“Whatever might be the reasons, this was the duty of DSS and PMB to communicate to the passengers about the problems well on time and also the PBM must take care of food, water and availability of clean toilets for passengers,” said the passengers.
