Mickky clears decks to remove
River Princess
Sandesh Prabhudesai
30 July 2002
Decks are cleared for the tourism department
here to begin the process of removing the grounded ship
River Princess, which has been lying off the Goan beach
in a prime tourist area for the last three years.
State tourism minister Mickky Pacheco
has dismissed the appeal made by Salgaoncar Mining Industries
Pvt Ltd, challenging the removal process. He has now
directed the tourism director to go ahead with the removal
formalities.
The 26-meter long ore carrier got drifted
away from the Mormugao harbour on a stormy night of
6 June 2000 and got grounded off Candolim beach in North
Goa (part of famous Calangute-Baga stretch) with a ruptured
bottom, hardly 100 metres away, causing nuisance to
the tourism industry.
It also created panic with oil spillage
being witnessed soon after monsoons, though lots of
oil was later removed from the ship. Due to cracks being
developed on the hull structure and bottom of the vessel,
refloating and towing it away has now become a new challenge
for the authorities.
Since Anil Salgaoncar, one of the leading
local industrialist and the ship owner, had remained
reluctant on towing away the ship initially, the issues
went into the state fighting series of legal battles.
To overcome this, the BJP government finally got a special
legislation passed in September last year, authorising
the state to confiscate such a nuisance and remove it.
Under the provisions of the same act,
Salgaoncar once again made an appeal before the tourism
minister, challenging tourism director's notice to submit
a concrete plan of removal of the ship.
While dismissing the appeal, Pacheco
has accepted tourism department's contention that the
ship is not only causing nuisance to the famous tourist
place but may also cause further oil spillage.
He has also dismissed owner's contention
that the ship cannot be refloated due to the cracks,
while accepting the expert committee's report that towing
it away is possible. The owner however was planning
to break it on the beach, which the tourism industry
had strongly objected to.
While dismissing the appeal, the minister
has now told the tourism director to get the original
ownership documents produced from Salgaoncar. Following
this, the director will once again ask the owner to
submit the removal plan, failing which it will be confiscated
by the department to begin the removal process.
While this whole process will definitely
take much longer period, it is crystal clear that the
ship will continue to stand there as a nuisance even
in the coming tourist season, beginning from October.
The department has to thus only try and refloat it before
the fourth monsoon season arrives in June next year.
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