Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Feb 25: Shipping is said to be the life line of Andaman and Nicobar Islands but it seems that the Shipping Services is unable to maintain this life line in a professional manner. Throughout the year a large number of vessels remain out of service for various reasons for which ultimately pubic suffer heavily.
At present due to routine maintenance, annual survey and other repair works four out of seven bigger passenger vessel, MV Kalighat, MV Sentinel, MV Bharat Seema and MV Dering are out of service, while only three bigger vessels MV Campbell Bay, MV Chowra and MV Coral Queen are available for North Island as well as remote Southern Islands of Nicobar Group.
Although it is expected that MV Kalighat will return back to service at Port Blair very shortly after maintenance but in between one out of the three vessels, presently in operation, develops technical snags then, again the pressure will be on public living in Nicobar Group of Islands.
Meanwhile questions are being asked over the condition of MV Dering vessel, which is under maintenance for more than one year and the present condition of the ship is yet not known. Why SCI is delaying the work of MV Dering is still not clear.
General Public is demanding intervention of LG and CS in this regard so more and more vessels can be pressed back into service once again.
