Deaths in river -- again!

The launch disasters in 2003 almost brought the river transportation system to a standstill as the number of victims in major capsizes was appallingly high. The government formed probe committees and there were apparently some energetic attempts to get at the root of the disastrous situation. A number of things like faulty designs of the vessels, inexperience of launch operators, overloading and breaches of all kinds of navigational rules surfaced after the probe bodies started digging. There was some tough bargaining between the launch owners and the government over passenger safety. But all of this has produced virtually nothing in terms of the safety of passengers and no report of the probe bodies has been made public so that the accountability exercise went completely by default. Needless to say, nobody has been punished for the loss of a huge number of lives, nor is it in public knowledge that compensations have been paid. In other words, it was basically a seasonal hype that fizzled out as soon as the dusts settled.

The emphasis on strict adherence to navigational rules came to naught. The launches categorized according to their river-worthiness proved to be an exercise in futility as the standards were not applied. As if to prove the point, MV 'Lighting Sun', one of the two launches that went down in Meghna, was in 'B' category i.e. unfit for undertaking the journey it hazarded. In fact, the craft sailed into the stormy zone, despite people warning the crew about the possible danger. The question is, will the clearly identifiable culprits be punished?

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There was the talk of installing modern weather monitoring devices in the river vessels. That has not been done so far; and what is particularly worrying is that the launch owners have no sense of danger otherwise inherent in the lack of rudimentary safety equipment.

The government should not rest content with forming a probe body to find out the causes behind the latest launch disasters, but also make sure that its recommendations are made public and implemented without ado.