TEAM HERALD
bureau@herald-goa.com
OLD GOA: Locals from Diwar Island on Sunday afternoon were inconvenienced after one of the ferry boats stopped its operation along the Old Goa-Diwar ferry route reportedly due to non-availability of staff.
According to reports, the motorists and locals were however forced to wait for the other ferry boat that was plying along the route.
The incident occurred at about 1.30 pm when the employees of the ferry boat, which included two sailors, a mechanic and a coxswain, stopped the ferry boat and docked it near Old Goa jetty due to non-availability of extra sailor.
Speaking to Herald, a sailor working on the ferry boat said: “We have been informing the concerned officials from Friday to depute an extra sailor.”
“But the officials even after carrying out inspection of the ferry boat failed to send a sailor. We are facing difficulty to work on the ferry boat with less staff,” said the sailor.
“We have only four staff working from Friday and two sailors out of the three have to do all the work of dragging rope, fees collection and other jobs due to which we have to face a lot of difficulty,” added the sailor.
When contacted, the RND officials said that they were unaware of the incident. “We will try to re-start the ferry boat as soon as possible,” said an official.
