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25 April 2010, 18:00 PM

METROPOLITAN

Pankaj Karmakar

Only two surveyors are working to verify fitness of around 10,000 registered and a good number of unregistered water vessels across the country. Of them, Eng AKM Fakhrul Islam is now working as acting chief engineer of the Department of Shipping (DoS) and only one ship surveyor, Eng Muinuddin Zulfiquer, posted in Khulna is sole responsible for surveying all inland water vessels. If both of the surveyors work every working day, they can examine fitness of more than 7,000 vessels in a year. But due to lack of cooperation of the owners, they can survey hardly 1,000 vessels per year, said a source at the DoS. He also recommended having at least eight to ten surveyors across the country to bring all water vessels under supervision. Lack of monitoring on the vessels is increasing risks of accidents on waterways. On an average 22 accidents occur every year on different river routes across the country leaving around 300 people dead, reveals a survey conducted last year by Safe Waterway Implement Movement, a non-government organisation. The unregistered and unfit vessels are causing tragic accidents leaving hundreds of people dead and incurring a loss of at least Tk 40 crore per year on an average, said the study. Due to lack of monitoring on the inland water vessels, the owners do not care about verifying fitness of their vessels regularly. “The vessels owners are not interested to get their ships surveyed as it costs around Tk 50,000 for a ship legally. But, if they do an underhand dealing with an inspector of the department, they can manage it at a much cheaper rate,” said an official of the DoS requesting anonymity. Besides the registered ones, there are thousands of unregistered vessels including trawlers and sand carrying cargos plying the rivers without caring about the fitness or survey certificate, the department sources said. The Department of Shipping has four posts of ship surveyor in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Barisal and Khulna and the government is sitting on a proposal of increasing the number to six. “It's humanly not possible to physically survey the ships by a surveyor. So, the inspectors generally conduct the physical monitoring and the surveyors approve them seeing the papers,” said the source at the DoS. Over the last 15 years, the government did never fill up more than three posts of ship surveyor. Even the government never took any initiative of proper inspection and fitness of the vessels, he said. According to a government survey revealed last year showed that 9,948 different kinds of vessels are plying different inland riverine routes across the country, while a non-government organisations showed that the number of water vessels is over 20,000 and two-third of them are unregistered. The accidents of MV Coco-4 in Lalmohan of Bhola in November 2009 and passenger trawler ML Nurussunna in Kishoreganj in December the same year are a burning example of giving fitness certificates without monitoring the vessels properly. ASM Nazmul Haque, gave fitness certificate of both the vessels, was withdrawn from the post of ship surveyor and transferred to Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC) after the accidents. Talking to The Daily Star, Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan said, “Manpower crisis is not a problem of my ministry only but also of all other ministries. There are nine departments under my ministry. I hope to fill up all the vacant posts immediately.”