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Launch safety still a far cry

RAFIQ HASAN
The overall situation at Sadarghat river terminal has improved a bit, but the safety of passengers is still a far cry.
Many launches overloaded with passengers and cargo were seen yesterday anchored at the terminal. The government officials are visiting the terminal regularly and imposing fines for violation of navigational rules.
Shipping Minister Akbar Hossain visited the terminal yesterday and expressed dissatisfaction over some vessels which did not have up to date documents of licences and survey certificates.
He visited at least four launches at the terminal and found only one vessel with up to date documents and its carrying capacity mentioned on the front of the vessel.
Other three launches were not carrying valid documents. The minister ordered the BIWTA officials to file cases against those vessels for not renewing licences and survey certificates.
A number of passengers got down from the launch MV Chandipur-1 as it was trying to leave the terminal overloaded. Later, the BIWTA officials detected the vessel. The terminal area has been cleaned and the passengers can move freely. But many country b o a t s w e r e s e e n l o a d-ing/unloading goods dangerously between two vessels.
"It is very difficult to restrict the boats because most of these come from the other side of the river," said a BIWTA official in charge of river traffic.
"The trend of overloading of passenger launches has declined following punitive actions, " claimed Fazlur Rahman, a special officer for marine safety and first class magistrate.
"We are trying to ensure that no launch carries goods on the deck which was one of the major causes behind the recent launch mishaps," he said adding that more than a dozen launches have been fined in the last week for violation of this particular rule.
The launches were fined Tk 1,000 to 3,000 on the basis of their capacity and the nature of the violation, Rahman said.
The terminal was almost free of vendors and hawkers in the morning when the shipping minister was there to inaugurate a new state-owned steamer route. But within half an hour after the minis-
ter had left the venue, a number of vendors occupied some places at the terminal.
When the attention of the magistrate was drawn to this matter he said the authorities had been trying to keep the vendors off the terminal but did not always succeed.
The newly appointed Senior Deputy Director of the river terminal, Mofizur Rahman, claimed that most of the tasks assigned by the shipping minister has already been done.
According to the department of shipping, the responsibility of checking fitness and survey certificate of a vessel lies with the field inspectors but their number is not adequate.
Only seven inspectors have to look after around 10,000 vessels. There is only one inspector for the Dhaka region which includes Rajshahi and Rangpur.
According to the BIWTA sources, the number of passengers on the river routes has fallen by around 25 per cent following the sinking of MV Nasrin-1.
Earlier, 30,000 to 35,000 people used to travel through the terminal every day.
The number of vessels has also declined to around 80 from over 100.