Rickety boats putting lives at risk
Apart from thousands of unregistered vessels, nearly half the registered ones ply the country’s inland waterways without the mandatory annual fitness licences.
Operation of unfit and unregistered vessels is one of the major causes behind collisions, which is responsible for around 60 percent riverine accidents, said experts and river campaigners, quoting a Buet research.
A lack of required number of ship surveyors, owners’ unwillingness to have the licences and running faulty vessels after bribing some unscrupulous officials are mainly to blame, they said.
Every year during this season when nor’wester is a common affair and ahead of Eid when the launch business hits its peak due to the mad rush of home-goers, the safety issue comes to the fore for discussion. This year, the Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated in the first week of next month.
Owing to the slack safety standards, the country had numerous accidents which left thousands of people dead in the past. The latest major accident took place in August 2014 when “Pinak-6”, an overloaded double-decker launch, capsized in the Padma. Over a hundred passengers were killed in the tragedy.
HALF THE REGISTERED VESSELS NOT INSPECTED
Following its survey last year, the Department of Shipping (DoS) handed over the annual fitness certificates to only 6, 159 of the 12,401 registered vessels, meaning the same number of the vessels, including launches, cargoes, oil-laden vessels, speedboats and dredgers, did not have the mandatory clearance.
Out of the 832 passenger carriers, 745 took the fitness test and passed, according to the department.
The DoS gave the certificates to 6,240 out of 11,418 registered vessels in 2017 and 6,217 out of 10,646 vessels in 2016, it said.
Besides, there are some 30,000 mechanised boats which are not registered with the department, according to an estimate of its officials. As per the relevant law, any mechanised boat, which is run by at least a 16-horsepower machine, must have DoS registration, said its officials.
Two years ago, the department had a plan to carry out a survey of the country’s unregistered vessels under a project titled “Ships and Mechanised Boats Data Entry Project,” but it has not seen light yet.
UNREGISTERED, UNFIT VEHICLES BEHIND ACCIDENTS
According to a research by the Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Buet, conducted on the basis of data from the DoS, at least 1,430 people were killed in 264 riverine accidents between 2005 and 2017. Besides, 135 people were injured and 265 others remained missing.
Out of the 264 accidents, 154 accidents (58 percent) occurred due to collisions, ARI Lecturer Md Imran Uddin told The Daily Star recently.
Thirty-one accidents (12 percent) happened for overloading and stability failure, 24 (9.1 percent) for storm, 17 (6.4 percent) for bottom rupture, 11 (4.2 percent) for excessive currents and 27 (10 percent) for other reasons, he said.
Allowing simultaneous operation of fit and unfit vessels by the authorities is one of the major reasons behind collisions in the riverways, Imran said.
He also said there were only five ship surveyors to check fitness of the vessels. Also, those operating the vessels lack the proper training to avoid collisions.
Explaining the matter, he said collision may happen when the navigational instruments like radar, GPS (Global Positioning System) VHF (Very High Frequency) telecommunication system and echo sounder either don’t work or are not operated properly.
Radar is used to identify the position of nearby vessels or obstruction while GPS used for detecting the position of the ship. VHF is used for maintaining communication between vessels and echo sounder is used to measure the water draft of the waterway route.
“If these essential equipment comes under periodic survey, then the risk of collision can be reduced,” he said.
“Actually, the authorities are now suffering from one sort of complacency as no major riverine accident took place in the last few years. However, there is room for neglecting the safety issue,” he added.
Ashis Kumar Dey, general secretary of the National Committee to Protect Shipping, Roads and Railways, said some unscrupulous launch owners operate vessels on “relatively unimportant routes” after “managing” some officials of the shipping department and the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA).
In many cases, surveyors do not carry out survey properly “taking benefits” from launch owners, he alleged, adding all these increase the risks of accidents.
Ashis, who wrote a book, titled “Rivers of Bangladesh and Water Transport System, further said among the ship surveyors, two don’t hold permanent positions and were drawn from other organisations.
Besides, an organogram of the shipping department was approved around two years ago with 21 posts for surveyors, but no new surveyors were appointed, he added.
WHAT AUTHORITIES SAID?
Contacted, Majurul Kabir, chief engineer and ship surveyor of the DoS, admitted that operation of unfit and unregistered vehicles make the waterways risky.
He said there were only five surveyors, including him, in the department and with that manpower it was difficult to survey all the registered vessels.
Besides, many owners do not apply for fitness certificates when they don’t want to run their vessels only for a particular period of the year, he said.
Kabir, however, said three more surveyors would be appointed soon and hoped the situation would improve after their recruitment.
He also said they file cases against unfit vessel with the marine court. Besides, mobile courts regularly conduct drives against them.
Besides, registration of a vessel would be cancelled if its owner does not bring his or her vessel under the DoS survey for three consecutive years, he added.
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