Nearly 4,500 people were killed in 558 small and big accidents on river routes across the country since the establishment of the Directorate of Shipping in1976. Besides, about 500 people were injured and nearly 450 missing in these accidents, Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan informed the House.
Responding to a question from treasury bench member Israfil Alam on Monday, the Shipping Minister said the main reasons for accidents on the river routes are natural disasters and inclement weather, not performing responsible role by the launch and other vessel owners, lack of awareness of the passengers and construction of structures beyond the design.
Other reasons are reluctance of the vessel owners in maintaining their vessels, overloading of passengers and goods in the vessels, running of vessels by unskilled “sareng”, reduction in navigability and not proper marking of channels and not conducting survey properly on time.
Shajahan Khan said the government has taken various steps at different times to check river accidents.
The steps, he said, included securitization of technical aspects of computer software including preparing procedure manual in approving design of the vessels, bringing all mechanized vessels under registration, identifying and scrapping of faulty launches and steamers, taking steps against overloading, keeping mandatory mobile phones in every launch for maintaining round-the- clock contact, checking of carrying passengers on rooftops of the vessels, strengthening activities of the vigilance teams and conducting mobile courts, dredging of the rivers, observance of river safety week, increasing the number of marine courts for settling cases quickly, issuance of advertisements in print and electronic media to raise awareness of the passengers.
