Residents express gratitude to Secretary Shipping for his commitment
Port Blair, Sept. 3: The long awaited demand of the people of the remote southern Island Katchal has finally been heard and the Administration has released a standard Operating Procedure yesterday, ensuring the regular sailing of the ships. The then Secretary Shipping, Shri Kishore Kshirsagar Lakshman in an interview with All India Radio in May this year had assured that a standard operating procedure would be drawn to provide regular ships for Katchal on every Tuesday, and now that promise has been converted into reality. As per the schedule released for this month, the next sailing of ship M.V. Sindhu for Katchal will be on 5th September which will proceed further to Campbell bay touching Nancowry on the way. The next sailings of this ship for the month are scheduled on 12th, 19th and 26th September on every Tuesday.
The released Press Note has brought great relief to the people of Katchal, who have been demanding regular ships for the last many years. The Joint Secretary of the Katchal Settlers’ Welfare Association, Shri Lawrence G.T, while talking to the media, expressed his happiness and said that it’s going to be like a dream come true. Thanking the then Secretary Shipping who had promised to fulfill the demand on an AIR broadcast a few months back, he said he has turned that promise into reality and the people are happy. He said that now the Katchal residents would get fresh vegetables, fruits and other essential commodities as M.V. Sindhu is a big modern ship with adequate cargo capacity, unlike in the past when the berthing of a ship at Katchal was a dream. The Katchal bound passengers had to get down at Nancowry and after a long wait of hours, used to get the connecting boat for Katchal from Kamorta. Waiting for the connecting boat at Kamorta amidst rain were very painful experiences and the eatables too used to get perished on the way. Making a modern boat like M.V. Sindhu accessible to Katchal people, would relieve the pains of the past, he said.
After the Tsunami tragedy the size and strength of the Katchal water Port was upgraded, but unfortunately because of unknown reasons it has hardly been used in the last many years. Now as the sailing of the M.V. Sindhu is going to commence shortly following an SOP of once in every week, the upgraded jetty infrastructure would be better utilized in the interest of the common man of remote places like Katchal, Shri Lawrence said.
It is worth mentioning that in an interview broadcast on AIR in May this year, the Secretary Shipping had promulgated many plans under pipeline for the upgradation of the facilities in the shipping sector, including improving living conditions of Passenger Halls at Diglipur, Haddo, Phoenix Bay, Bambooflat and Long Island ports, making it air conditioned. He had also said that many new ships for the foreshore sectors would join the fleet in the coming days, and that would enable the administration to provide better connectivity between far flung Chowra, Teressa and Kamorta Islands.