How to improve Inland Ship Safety
Sakhawat Hossain, Gulshan, Dhaka
Our minister of shipping Akbar Hossain should admit his failure after the tragic river incident of MV Salahuddin followed by MV Nasrin recently. It is a fact for almost last hundred years the IG0-RSN and later EP shipping corporation had been operating passenger services in Dhaka, Chandpur and Barisal sector without any serious accident. That was possible because those passenger ships were built with high degree of stability and sufficient engine power. Whereas, the present set of locally built passenger ships are generally unstable and under powered. They capsize during storms or collisions giving no time to passengers to grab lifejackets. Because of their low horsepower, they cannot encounter adverse river currents. A few suggestions about how to improve inland passenger ships in our rivers safe: (1) No passenger ship should be allowed to leave the terminals overloaded with passengers. (2) We cannot eliminate the large number of ships that are already on the rivers. These should be inspected by people with technical knowledge of this sector and subjected to modification if required to improve stability. (3) As a long-term measure, immediately set up the Inland Ships Safety Administration, ISSA. After exhaustive study of IWT sector, the World Bank gave concrete proposal back in 1994 to create the body ISSA to bring under one umbrella the entire management of this sector. ISSA should be provided with qualified staffs like marine engineers, naval architects, navigators etc. with sufficient clout to give a professional service. Design and drawing of new ships and construction will be under the supervision of this board. After completion ISSA surveyors will carry out stability tests, like speed trials and make the necessary inventory of life saving and fire fighting appliances. They will assign the final registration. In short, ISSA should be the watchdog of all inland ships.
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