Ferry services resume in city

Kolkata: Ensuring proper social distancing norms to prevent Covid- 19, ferry services resumed in the city on Monday.

The ferry services, operated by the West Bengal Transport Corporation and Hooghly Nadi Jalapath Paribahan Samabay Samiti (HNJPSS), started with 40 percent of the passenger capacity of the vessels and following the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) towards safe operation of Inland Water Transport.

According to sources, the vessels started its operations in nine routes – Howrah - Shipping, Howrah- Fairlie, Fairlie- Kuthighat via Ratanbabu, Kashipur and Bagbazar, Kuthighat- Belur, Noorpur- Gadiara, Nazirganj- Metiaburuj, Ramkrishnapur- Chandpal, Chandpal- Howrah via Fairlie and Howrah- Bagbazar via Ahiritola and Shovabazar. The vessels are operating between 8 am and 6 pm.

"After an over two-month-long hiatus owing to the lockdown, ferries were back on river Hooghly on Monday. The passengers will have to maintain social distancing norms and no passenger without mask shall be allowed to board. All the passengers were thermally screened before being allowed to board the ferries. The vessels are being disinfected and sanitised from time to time," said an official.

During adverse weather condition, the ferries will be stopped without any delay and under no circumstances it will be restarted without the permission of the authority. No vessel will be allowed to operate without proper Life Saving Appliances (LSA), Fire Fighting Appliances (FFA) and Light Sound and Signal Appliances (LSSA).

In October 2019, state Transport minister Suvendu Adhkari flagged off new ferry services from Kuthighat. 200 seater double engine vessels were pressed into service to connect Kuthighat, Bagbazar ghat and Farlie Place ghat.