Every time a boat capsizes in Kerala, where inland cruise tourism is flourishing largely unregulated, the familiar refrain is that it was a tragedy waiting to happen. The boat that sank in the Poorapuzha estuary in Tanur municipality on Sunday evening, killing 22 people, 15 of them children, was packed with local tourists to twice its capacity and was not cleared for post-dusk operations. It remains unclear how a fishing boat fitted with an upper deck received clearance, if at all it did, to conduct inland tourist operations. Rescue workers, most of them fishermen, sustained injuries from the broken glass panels that covered the windows on its lower deck where most victims had got trapped. The Kerala government has ordered a judicial inquiry, with the support of experts, into the accident and the police have arrested the owner of the vessel.
It was just a month ago that international disaster management expert Muralee Thummarukudy issued a prescient warning, which sounds eerie in hindsight, of an imminent houseboat tragedy in Kerala with at least 10 casualties. The cautionary note flagged the absence of crew training, sparse availability and use of safety material such as life vests, lack of on-board briefing of guests and erratic renewal of operational licence and enforcement thereon. Inquiring into the Thekkady boat capsize, in 2009, the worst Kerala has seen with 45 casualties, the former judge, E. Moideen Kunju, had recommended expeditious formation of a maritime board to regulate water transport. The Kerala Maritime Board was formed in 2017 by merging the Directorate of Ports, Kerala State Maritime Development Corporation Limited, and the Kerala Maritime Society. But the police investigation in the case dragged on, with a second charge sheet filed 10 years after the accident. The trial has not begun yet. As per official data, 3,213 inland vessels are in operation in Kerala’s numerous waterways, but industry insiders give a ballpark figure of about 4,000 vessels, also counting the unlicensed ones. The maritime board, vested with the responsibility to ensure the fitness, licensing and safe operation of all tourist vessels in Kerala including houseboats, is short of adequate manpower to carry out its job. It has no enforcement wing to keep a tab on errant vessels including those that dodge periodic renewal of licence. Boat tourism holds tremendous potential in a State lined with waterways, but to be able to reap its benefits, the safety of the people using it should be given top priority. The government should expeditiously arm the maritime board with the wherewithal to carry out enforcement. This will ensure that erring officials are taken to task and not just the boat crew and managers.
