Govt must ensure people can travel safely on boats
On Thursday, 19 passengers died when their boat sank in the river Yamuna in Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh. And as usual, the cause of the mishap was gross overloading of the boat.
Of course, the initial reports do not indicate the quality or the nature of the boat that went down, but in most of these cases, investigations after the accident invariably reveal that the boat and the boatmen were unlicensed. And most likely, the boat was never tested and certified for its quality, stability or its load bearing capacity. So its quality is suspect and even its capacity is only a guesswork.
Yet, from the reports of the mishap, what becomes apparent is that the chances of the passengers reaching the shore safe would have been very high, if only the boat had not been over loaded. The boat reportedly had a capacity to carry 20, but was carrying twice the number and in addition, there were over 10 bags of fertilisers weighing 50 kg each. With that kind of a load, the boat had to sink.
The passengers were all reportedly daily wage labourers who had to reach their place of work by 8am. Since there was only one boat and the next boat was an hour away, no one wanted to wait and lose their day’s wages. So they all boarded the boat, risking their lives in the bargain. Since these boats do not carry any life buoys and life jackets, only those who were good swimmers or those who were lucky enough to be rescued immediately, survived.
And this brings me to the issue that I keep raising after almost every major boat accident — Why can’t state governments stop overloading of boats and prevent these tragic accidents? Thanks to the neglect of inland water transportation in the waterways under their territory by state governments, this mode of commute suffers from innumerable problems, including poor quality of boats and poorer regulatory oversight, particularly in respect of passenger safety. But the leading cause of boat accidents is the indiscriminate overburdening of the boats.
Whether it is the last week’s accident in the Yamuna or the January 14 tragedy in Bihar, where a boat bringing back revelers from a kite flying festival capsized in the Ganga, killing 24 passengers or the mishap in West Bengal last May, where at least 20 people drowned in the Bhagirathi along with the boat, the cause of the disasters is the same — overloading.
As per the National Crime Records Bureau data, there were as many as 315 boat accidents in the country in 2015, with Assam(139), Uttar Pradesh (55), Tamil Nadu (31) and Kerala (30) contributing largely to the numbers. Unfortunately, NCRB does not analyse the causes, but most preliminary investigations flag overloading as the trigger.
Since the cause of such overloading is the inadequacy of the transportation network, the local administrations have to study the passenger demand and the availability of boat services and where necessary, augment the services, so as to bring down the number of passengers per trip.
Second, all boats have to specify in a prominent manner, the number of passengers (and cargo) that it can carry and a warning against overloading. Of course, this requires surveying and registration of every vessel, including country boats and this has to be done without fail.
Third, the service providers who overload the boat should be penalised. Today, they all get away scot free. Fourth, consumer education about the risk of travelling on an overloaded boat is absolutely essential.
Consumers should also remember that they have a right to a safe passage on these boats and the state governments have a duty to ensure this.