Guwahati: Boat accident in Jorhat district of Assam on Wednesday has again exposed Assam The Department of Inland Water Transport, which operates 102 ferry services on major rivers including the Brahmaputra, without providing adequate safety equipment or boats, sometimes operated by untrained personnel, poses risks to passengers as well as other boats.
A woman was killed and two others are still missing when a private motorized country boat going from Majuli to Nimtighat capsized on Wednesday.
Assam being a riverine state, boat accidents are not new. A recent ferry accident near Guwahati in September 2018, which resulted in the death of three people, indicated overloading, unreliable engines and lack of crew training to respond properly to engine failure.
After the 2012 boat accident at Dhubri, the then Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi directed Additional Chief Secretary Jitesh Khosla to conduct an inquiry into the accident, concluding that it was necessary to ensure the integrity of the river and the safety of vessels operating on the river. Enforcement envisaged in the statutory framework was not carried out. The river in question. The reason for this is more likely to be “systematic” rather than personal negligence, the report said. Khosla’s investigation found that the state machinery was completely unaware of the existence and operation of the sinking boat.
Assam has 361 ferry routes – 89 are operated by the state government and another 272 are overseen by local (village) and district councils. The figures recorded for Directorate of Inland Water Transport (DIWTA)-administered ferry routes for 2017-18 only indicate annual haulage with over 9 million passengers and 43,000 tonnes of freight. The total passenger flow, including all ferry routes in the state, could be more than double this estimate.
“There are around 2700 semi-mechanized boats in Assam, mainly operated by private individuals or associations as criss-cross ferry services. These boats do not comply with any safety standards and are sometimes operated by untrained personnel, posing a risk to passengers as well as other boats. But the state government has contemplated a scheme to improve the safety standards and operating conditions of country boat ferry services in Assam by launching a voluntary incentive scheme named ‘JIBONDINGA’2 with the aim of regularization and safe operation of country boats in Assam. . Kalita, transport advisor to the state-run Assam Inland Water Transport Development Society, said.
The World Bank, which is helping modernize Assam’s passenger ferry sector, said in a report that there are serious deficiencies in regulatory oversight, lack of communication systems and safety equipment, lack of crew training and inadequate disaster response planning. .
An independent researcher, Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, said the boats do not comply with any safety standards across Assam. He said that if a ferry carries 100 passengers, there will be hardly 10 life jackets in that ferry, which will violate all kinds of safety norms. “The main agenda is how do we actually maintain the safety of passengers using river transport in Assam. Not only between Jorhat and Majuli, but in the entire Brahmaputra, where the government is aware, the need of the hour is to ensure basic safety equipment to be able to save lives in any such incident in future. Such river transport is being operated. If the government wants, it can provide safety equipment and involve human resource to enforce strict protocol of not overloading,” Rehman said.
A woman was killed and two others are still missing when a private motorized country boat going from Majuli to Nimtighat capsized on Wednesday.
Assam being a riverine state, boat accidents are not new. A recent ferry accident near Guwahati in September 2018, which resulted in the death of three people, indicated overloading, unreliable engines and lack of crew training to respond properly to engine failure.
After the 2012 boat accident at Dhubri, the then Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi directed Additional Chief Secretary Jitesh Khosla to conduct an inquiry into the accident, concluding that it was necessary to ensure the integrity of the river and the safety of vessels operating on the river. Enforcement envisaged in the statutory framework was not carried out. The river in question. The reason for this is more likely to be “systematic” rather than personal negligence, the report said. Khosla’s investigation found that the state machinery was completely unaware of the existence and operation of the sinking boat.
Assam has 361 ferry routes – 89 are operated by the state government and another 272 are overseen by local (village) and district councils. The figures recorded for Directorate of Inland Water Transport (DIWTA)-administered ferry routes for 2017-18 only indicate annual haulage with over 9 million passengers and 43,000 tonnes of freight. The total passenger flow, including all ferry routes in the state, could be more than double this estimate.
“There are around 2700 semi-mechanized boats in Assam, mainly operated by private individuals or associations as criss-cross ferry services. These boats do not comply with any safety standards and are sometimes operated by untrained personnel, posing a risk to passengers as well as other boats. But the state government has contemplated a scheme to improve the safety standards and operating conditions of country boat ferry services in Assam by launching a voluntary incentive scheme named ‘JIBONDINGA’2 with the aim of regularization and safe operation of country boats in Assam. . Kalita, transport advisor to the state-run Assam Inland Water Transport Development Society, said.
The World Bank, which is helping modernize Assam’s passenger ferry sector, said in a report that there are serious deficiencies in regulatory oversight, lack of communication systems and safety equipment, lack of crew training and inadequate disaster response planning. .
An independent researcher, Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, said the boats do not comply with any safety standards across Assam. He said that if a ferry carries 100 passengers, there will be hardly 10 life jackets in that ferry, which will violate all kinds of safety norms. “The main agenda is how do we actually maintain the safety of passengers using river transport in Assam. Not only between Jorhat and Majuli, but in the entire Brahmaputra, where the government is aware, the need of the hour is to ensure basic safety equipment to be able to save lives in any such incident in future. Such river transport is being operated. If the government wants, it can provide safety equipment and involve human resource to enforce strict protocol of not overloading,” Rehman said.
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