The Kerala Maritime Board (KMB) and the Ports department are under fire as the houseboat that sank in Alappuzha on Thursday morning, resulting in the death of a tourist and a providential escape for four others, had illegally added its upper deck, had not renewed its licence since 2013, and was not dry-docked every two years, official sources said.
It shows that the two agencies remained mute spectators even as a total of five tourists lost their life in similar incidents on board houseboats during the past year, mainly in Alappuzha, representatives of houseboat operators associations and naval architects, who were associated with inspecting houseboats and other tourist vessels, said. That officials of the two agencies failed to take note of an entire upper deck being added illegally to the ill-fated vessel itself is proof of their lackadaisical attitude since it has an adverse fallout on the stability of the wooden vessel whose hull is not built to support two decks, the sources added.
Interestingly, the practice of blacklisting houseboats and other tourist vessels that operated without licence and other mandatory norms and publishing their names online were dropped a few years ago, reportedly owing to pressure from operators. A proposal to introduce GPS tracking too was given up, making tracking of such vessels all the more tough.
A houseboat operator primarily blamed the KMB and the registering authority of the Ports department for neglecting the “perilous situation in the houseboat sector, which has of late been sitting atop a powder keg. Tourists are subsequently in a fix, unable to identify vessels that have adhered to norms.”
Admitting that there was shortage of surveyors to inspect vessels, a senior KMB official said even the sole crew member who was on board the houseboat that sank on Thursday had not undergone the mandatory training. “With the government fixing a carrying capacity on boats that operate in Alappuzha, those registered elsewhere often operate here illegally,” he said.
KMB clarification
In reference to an online news report, ‘Upper deck of houseboat was illegally added; Maritime Board, Ports department under fire’, which was also carried in the Kochi edition on December 30, the Kerala Maritime Board (KMB) chief executive officer sent a communication stating that the agency took exception to the mention – it was actually a comment made by a naval architect quoted in the news item — of a terminated officer as ‘upright’ and ‘trapped’, which has since been removed from the above report.
The KMB maintained that the person was a ‘contract labourer’ and that “there were umpteen complaints from the public” against him. He was removed on the basis of “solid evidences and through a due process”. He never approached any legal forum challenging his removal, the rejoinder said.
