Why a launch strike?

The owners were angered by the penalisation and announced a programme in protest to bring river transportation to a halt. It defies understanding why they went for such a wholesale measure when legal options were open to them to get things corrected if anything wrong had at all been imposed on them.

There are other points to ponder as well. Obviously, taking a lenient view of a gross violation of navigation rules like overloading is out of the question after what we have been through in the recent months. The owners should have accepted at least the moral responsibility of the tragic deaths and prepared themselves to avoid overloading by all means in future. But unfortunately that does not seem to have happened. They are showing little sign of remorse or compunction.

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It is not clear what they are up to. Do they want to perpetuate violation of rules that puts the lives of passengers at grave risk? How else can we explain the way they have reacted sharply to strict enforcement of the law? One can ill afford to forget that the bona fide and well-meaning launch owners had reached an agreement with the government on adoption of certain safety measures and compliance with the rules following a series of launch disasters. They should live up to the commitment.

We want to lay emphasis once again on safety measures that are needed to make launch journeys less perilous. The government is rightly contemplating installation of certain facilities in launches that would substantially reduce their vulnerability. But matters cannot improve unless river vessels go by the navigational rules in the first place.

Launch owners are seemingly blowing a minor issue out of proportions. The passengers are by no means responsible for the legal action taken against some launches; yet they are the ones paying a price for it. How long will this continue?