Safety campaigners are alleging that government agencies are indifferent to their responsibilities laid down in High Court’s directives, issued two months ago, which set out the steps they should take to ensure that riverine passengers can travel safely during the two Eids and other festivals.
However, the director general of shipping, Zubair Rahman, dismissed these concerns and told New Age that the government has in fact complied with all the directives of the High Court.
‘We can stop the overloading of passenger launches if garment factory workers get leave at least two days prior to Eid,’ he said. ‘The garment sector workers overcrowd the terminals as they get leave just one day before Eid.’
In its August 25 order, the High Court bench of Justice Mirza Hussain Haider and Justice Md Nuruzzaman ordered the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation to inspect launches to check their river-worthiness, and ensure that any vessel that does not comply with the legal requirements does not ‘under any circumstance’ operate on the rivers.
It also ordered the BIWTC to ensure that the vessels have properly qualified crew and appropriate life-saving equipment on board, and required the government to deploy a sufficient number of law enforcement personnel to prevent overloading of passenger launches.
The court issued the directives after hearing a supplementary petition filed by the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers’ Association in the furtherance of a writ petition that it had initially lodged along with the Consumer Association of Bangladesh.
In the original writ petition, the High Court had issued a series of directives in 2003, 2005 and 2009 for preventing launch disasters.
The court on 25 August, 2011 issued the fresh directives since the petitioners argued that the previous directives had not been complied with.
When the case again came up before the court on October 18 to compel the government bodies to provide
the court a compliance report, the judges strongly criticized the deputy attorney general, Al-Amin Sarker, when he sought further time to implement the directives.
When he submitted the government’s compliance report seven days later, the court said that it was not satisfied with the report as it did not detail how the authorities had responded to each of the court’s August 25 directives.
The court again ordered the government to comply with all its directives in the upcoming Eid ul-Azha that is to be celebrated in the country on November 7, and to submit a further compliance report on November 15.
The Consumer Association of Bangladesh’s president, Kazi Faruk, told New Age that the government has not acted as the High Court directed.
‘The authorities concerned act as though they do not have to stand in the dock if they fail to obey the directives,’ he added.
Iqbal Kabir, a lawyer from the Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association, said, ‘The government’s failure to provide a proper explanation of how it had complied with the court’s directives shows a lack of interest on its part.’
He pointed out that the government had failed to disseminate information on launch safety through the media as required by the court.
Source: newagebd.com/newspaper1
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