Though casualities in ferry capsizes have topped around 4,500 while many remain missing in the last 38 years, the government is yet to take punitive action against those responsible because of a vicious cycle of corrupt officials.
Probe committees are formed after every incident and they make recommendations to the Shipping Ministry. Of around 500 such committee reports, only four have so far been published and punitive action was taken against the vessel owners.
In the other incidents, no probe report was made public in line with the related law and no one except for the ministry officials are aware of the facts and names of persons responsible. Even it is alleged that the ministry does not pay heed to the preventive measures suggested by the probe bodies.
A senior leader of the launch owners said in most cases, the responsible launch owners and staff too were not told about what to do to prevent recurrence of accidents. Most of the owners repair or improve service by themselves.
Water transportation experts told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday said concealing the probe reports actually helped the launch owners escape punishment. They said the recommendations needed to be followed to prevent such casualities.
At least 4,420 people died while 520 others injured and 400 remain missing in over 550 launch accidents in the last 38 years, according to the official statement of the Department of Shipping and the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA). Of those, around 1,960 persons were killed and 176 persons went missing in the last decade.
However, the actual number of accidents and casualities is much higher than the government estimates.
The probe bodies found that most incidents had taken place because of faulty design and structure, inefficient drivers, overloading passengers, ignoring weather forecasts, and lack of life-safety equipment on the vessels.
“The recommendations made by the probe committees in most cases hold the masters [drivers] responsible for the incidents, but they are rarely punished. The relevant law has a provision to fine a maximum of Tk1 lakh. But no one has ever been fined that amount until date,” said Aminur Rasul Babul, general secretary of Nirapod Noupath Bastabayon Andolon, a platform working to ensure safe waterway.
According to the law, the probe reports are supposed to be made public in 10 days after submission. Many of the committees did not event file reports within the stipulated time frame, he said.
In most cases, the recommendations were never implemented, Babul added.
According to the organisation, the reports of 863 investigation committees, formed to investigate 535 incidents, were not made public.
Buet’s Prof Khabirul Haque Chowdhury told the Dhaka Tribune that all these probe committees formed in the name of taking preventive measures were eyewash.
“All these incidents are killings and cannot be stopped only through formation of probe committees. There are not enough people to monitor the operation of the vessels; even the magistrates do not have any authority to prevent such incidents,” he said expressing frustration over the rising number of accidents.
“People responsible for the incidents are approving the designs and none of them even care about the recommendations,” said Khabirul, who has been working on the sector since 1986.
Regarding punitive measures mentioned in the probe reports, he said: “The reports are prepared in a way so that the guilty people can escape punishment.”
Blaming mismanagement as the core reason behind such incidents, former BIWTA secretary Syed Monowar Hussain said the recommendations of the probe reports were not implemented since those reports had been prepared by surveyor and inspectors under the shipping department. “These officials usually approves operation of water vessels with faulty designs. This is why the findings should be questioned.”
He also said the recommendations always remain the same in the reports when only the names of vessels and owners, location and number of passengers are changed.
Regarding the recent Pinak 6 capsize, Monowar said the launch was carrying over 300 people while the capacity was only 85. “The launch was already vulnerable and bad weather just made the accident evident.”
Since inclement weather has always been a common phenomenon, so the main reasons behind the tragic incident were “overloading passengers and lack of monitoring.”
“Neither the BIWTA nor the shipping department has any monitoring and control in Kawrakandi jetty to ensure that the launch did not operate with passengers beyond its capacity,” he said.
Monowar said the shipping department had only six surveyor-cum-inspectors to monitor over 10,000 vessels, registered by the government, for the whole country. “None of them were prosecuted for approving the faulty designs.”
While contacted, Bangladesh Inland Waterways (passenger carrier’s) Association Adviser Badiuzzaman Badal, however, blamed the government for not cooperating with them in taking adequate preventive measures.
“Many of the probe committees were formed until date, but the government never contacted us. None of our representatives were included in the committees to help them taking effective preventive measures,” he said.
“We do not know how the accidents happened as the recommendations were never disclosed to us. So how can those be implemented?”
Badal said they were always unaware of the recommendations. So they address the visible problems with their own knowledge, not based on the recommendations.
“If we are included in the committees, it will create obstacles for the bureaucrats to make money through corruption,” he claimed.
