Editorial
Monitoring unfit river and road transports
Harsher measures would be necessary against law-breakers
With the Muslim community's biggest religious festival the Eid-ul-fitr round the corner, the operators of river vessels and inter-district road transports have started big preparations to catch the homebound Eid passengers. The owners of the launches, in particular, are reportedly busy repairing many defective vessels so that they may look fit for service. And not to be left behind, the bus owners are also doing similar cosmetic changes on the exterior of the buses to make them look smart and roadworthy.
From past records we know what a moving death trap these smart-looking launches and buses may become. Every year, shocking launch tragedies and road crashes become the stuff of the news in the media, especially during the rainy season and before the big religious festivals.
From the brisk ongoing repair and face-lifting of decrepit and unfit vessels at different dockyards, there is growing fear that this season, too, we may find many of these unfit and old vessels with deceptively fresh look plying the river routes imperilling the lives of hundreds of Eid passengers.
According to reports, more than a hundred such faulty and unfit launches are undergoing face-lifting repairs at the Keraniganj dockyard alone. And we still have no exact figure on how many more such unfit vessels are undergoing so-called repair work at other places all across the country.
Now, how is the government going to prevent these 'repaired' vessels from being pressed into service on the different river routes? Do the authorities have enough manpower to check and verify these vessels? For in the report carried by this newspaper, the DG Shipping has informed that they have only three surveyors and four inspectors to verify the fitness of more than 11,000 registered river vessels. And add to these, another 23,000 unregistered vessels, according to the official's own admission.
A voluntary organisation, on the other hand, has found that more than two thousand launches out of the 5, 000 they had surveyed were without registration.
In the circumstances, the government will be facing a huge challenge in conducting its monitoring and verification work on the river vessels to be released on the waterways during the Eid. And the understaffed shipping department will be required to take especial measures to ensure safety of the millions of passengers rushing to the launch and bus terminals in the capital as elsewhere in the country.
And the shipping minister's, or for that matter, the government's assurances notwithstanding, we would like to caution the authorities that some road and water transport operators will try to run those unfit vehicles all the same. And in that case, the government will have to use very harsh legal measures to restrain the errant transport owners.
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