Ensure quality of river crafts

To begin with, it has identified 57 launches as 'risky and unfit". The identification follows categorisation of 2,100 river vessels done in April after a series of launch mishaps. So, there has been an inexplicable loss of time between categorisation of the vessels and identification of some of them as unfit. The ministry has also initiated an investigation into how those unfit and risky vessels managed to get the licence to operate in the first place. Curiously, the ministry has raised a question that ought to be self-directed. After all, the navigational licences could not have been issued by any outsider. So, the most important job was not done and we have witnessed what a price people had to pay for the lapse.

Now, we would suggest a three-pronged strategy to bring back order in inland navigation. First, the vessels marked unfit and risky in the irreparable sense will have to be ordered out of business. Second, the vessels that need repairing and modernisation should be sent to dockyards immediately and they must not be allowed to ply until they attain river worthiness under certification by experts. Third, it is a good idea that launch-building will henceforth be under direct supervision of the shipping ministry in the sense that launches will have to be built on designs given by the ministry. The ministry should use the services of the experts from the naval architecture department of BUET and ensure that no violation of rules takes place in this area.

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Finally, alongside making efforts to enforce the rules and regulations investigation must also be made into the allegation that some of the vessels plying the most turbulent rivers have a "flattened draft" which help them negotiate shoals and shallow water in some parts of the rivers. But such a draft can be a source of great danger when a launch is plying along deep water.