John Wilbert & Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Apr 02: The unavailability of a tug boat has become a major issue for various ships reaching Haddo and Car Nicobar Port for berthing, causing unwanted delay in movement of ships and inconvenience to passengers as well as crew members.
The Andaman Sheekha Daily had earlier highlighted this issue, but still the situation is the same.
Many ships like oil tankers, gas tankers, and other passenger ships arrive at Haddo Port frequently but due to tug boat shortage sometimes a delay in berthing of these ships has been reported.
Currently, the Port Management Board has only one tug boat, MT Andaman, which is operational at Haddo Jetty. In cases where the MT Andaman becomes non-operational due to maintenance or repair works, the PMB takes help from the Tug Boats of Andaman Nicobar Command to manage the situation. However, many times defense is not able to provide tug boat facility on time, causing ships that need to berth to wait for a long time.
The shortage of tug boats has caused inconveniences and time wastage for passengers and crew members.
According to seafarers, tug boats are in must for ports for the safety of ships as well as passengers. Often we see oil tankers and Gas tankers reaching Port Blair and for safety of those ships Tug Boats are necessary.
When contacted, a senior officer of the Port Management Board told Andaman Sheekha today that PMB has already taken the initiative to hire two more tug boats on contract basis for Port Blair as well as Nicobar District. This initiative will help ships to berth safely, he claimed.
Ships are said to be lifelines for Andaman and Nicobar Islands but sadly we have failed to provide sufficient Tug Boats and pilots for the safety of these ships. This shows something is terribly wrong in the decision making level.
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