The Kochi Corporation has requested the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) to spare one of many two container roll-on roll off (ro-ro) vessels to function within the Fort Kochi-Bolgatty Island hall because it may take round per week to restore Sethusagar-2, a ro-ro ferry that was withdrawn from service on Monday from the busy Vypeen-Fort Kochi route, it’s learnt.
The container ro-ro had been launched on the Bolgatty route earlier this yr, after Sethusagar-1 was withdrawn from service in November following technical snag. The container ro-ro was withdrawn after per week’s service owing to low patronage. Sethusagar-1 continues to be out of service and is awaiting dry docking on the Cochin Shipyard.
Sources within the Kochi Corporation stated that they’d give vast publicity for the container ro-ro service, in order that motorists and different commuters would be in a position to make use of it. Simultaneously, efforts are on to drydock Sethusagar-1.
Sources within the Kerala Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation (KSINC), which operates and maintains ro-ro vessels, stated that the clutch meeting package that was awaited for Sethusagar-1 from the Netherlands would be put in in Sethusagar-2. It has arrived in Goa and can be delivered right here in just a few days. It prices ₹22 lakh a bit, and such expensive tools can’t be saved upfront. It would have been higher had Indian parts been relied on, they added.
Regular ro-ro commuters like Denson Peter, a Vypeen resident, stated that such points might have been addressed if the third ro-ro vessel (for which ₹10 crore had been earmarked within the State Budget) was readied and the container ro-ro pressed into service until then. “The government must also decide on an underwater tunnel that had been suggested by experts to link Vypeen and Fort Kochi, which will make it part of the coastal highway,” he stated.
