Editorial
Rush for repairing vessels
Placing lives of passengers to grave risk
With the Eid round the corner, the shipping yards are suddenly abuzz with activities to repair and repaint the river-going vessels.
But these repair works have not been driven by any self-motivation but required by the shipping ministry. The fact that around two dozen defective, unsafe vessels had been plying between Dhaka and other parts of the country over the last one month prompted the shipping department to instruct vessel operators to obtain their fitness certificates before pressing those into service.
The question is why in the first place the faulty vessels could ply for a period of time at all? Anyway, the legitimate concern is over whether repair is being done under the watch of any competent authority or just left to the operators to do as they please.
Who is going to ensure that the repairs under Eid pressure will not be rushed in a slapdash and perfunctory manner and lives of thousands of Eid travellers put to grave risks. We disapprove of this in-season dash for servicing which would be prone to sloppy and cosmetic patchwork possibly leaving the major defects unattended.
There should be zero-tolerance towards any excuse for laxity either on the part of shipping department or the vessel operators that may endanger the lives of commuters by river.
We would like to urge the shipping ministry to ensure that the entire range of activities related to repairs is stringently supervised before the vessels are provided with fitness certificate to operate.
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