AS a significant section of the population in the capital … looks forward to spending … the … Eidul Fitr vacation [in] the countryside … safety on the road, rail and rivers may be casting a bit of [a] shadow on the festive feeling.

Little wonder then that some politicians and rights activists on Sunday expressed their concern about safety of launch passengers and asked the authorities … to prevent overloading of vessels on inland waterways. According to a report … at a roundtable discussion … they also called for steps to ensure that properly trained masters and crew members operate launches….

A former director of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority said half a million additional passengers would travel by launches on … Eid. However, the government has no correct figures about how many additional passengers travel by launches during Eid…. He also said the signalling system on the waterways was not perfect.

Suffice [it] … to say, these are all known facts … and point to years of sustained indifference and failure of the authorities to streamline the sector. The shipping minister, who was present at the discussion … said the government would take steps to ensure passenger safety [and] that the police, the Rapid Action Battalion and the coastguards would be deployed to check overloading.

Needless to say, such assurances … are also familiar but hardly inspire any confidence in the passengers…. After all, such assurances … hardly translate into any positive changes in the scenario; it is entirely likely that, as the Eid vacation draws near, overloaded launches … would become [a] sadly familiar [sight].

As in … other issues, passenger safety … seems to have become something … the government … talks about either before Eid or … after a major accident. That is … why the waterways remain as unsafe as possible…. The authorities need to realise that passenger safety … is not an episodic affair. Hence, the authorities need to be alert round the year….— (July 24)