Bhubaneswar/Berhampur, Dec 12: Regarding the tragic mishap happened in Chilika Lake, yesterday the Commerce and Transport department minister, Ramesh Majhi asked for a detailed report from the Directorate of Ports and Inland Water Transport.
Bhimsen Behera, President of Sabulia Society informed the media that, out of about 150 country boats ferrying in Chilika Lake, only 20-25 boats have life jackets. Since large number of tourists used to ferry in the lake every day, it is not possible to provide them the life jackets and due to acute shortage of life jackets, the passengers who were travelling in the ill-fated boat met with the tragic mishap. Hence, district administration and the Chilika Development Authority (CDA) have been asked to provide adequate number of life jackets to ensure that such unfortunate incident do not occur in future. District Fisheries Officer, Ganjam, Khetrabasi Behera, who visited the accident site told media that the tragic incident occurred due to lack of safety awareness of the boatman who had ferried passengers more than the capacity of the boat in gross violation of the rules framed by the government. Besides, the boat owner has not done the renewal of his boat since registration.
It’s stated that although there are boats which are meant for the tourists, the latter usually prefer fishing boats as they are charged less money as compared to the tourist boats. Besides, there is no time constraint for the tourist while ferrying in fishing boats while tourist boats have specified time schedule of their departure and arrival.
