The Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly Debabrata Saikia has expressed grief at the mechanized boat mishap in Guwahati on Wednesday which is believed to have left several passengers dead
as there were 40 people on board in the boat.
Saikia said that negligence on the part of the Government and boat operators plays a major part in such accidents.
He said that apart from poor training, dangerous work practices such as overloading and insufficient safety measures, inadequate and virtually non-existent enforcement by government agencies were root causes of such disasters.
Saikia said that the government should own up responsibility for the latest tragedy as it has not woken up to the reality exposed by incident after incident, such as the ones in Dhubri in 2012 and Goalpara in September last year.
The Government had promised preventive action and strict enforcement of rules for passenger boats after the Goalpara incident, but today’s tragedy has exposed that nothing has been actually done on the ground.
Saikia condoled the death of innocent people and demanded that the Government should provide adequate compensation to the bereaved families.