Ahmedabad: RoRo ferry service to resume operations on February 24

The decision to restart the ferry service comes after a high-level meeting was held in Delhi on February 13 which was chaired by Union Minister of State for Shipping Manuskh Mandaviya. It was decided to set up an empowered committee to find solutions to the issues surrounding dredging and restart the ferry operations. The meeting was called after Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) —- that has been dredging the sea-bed to ensure the smooth ferry operations —- cited a four-fold cost over-run in dredging operations and requested the Centre to take over the project.

The ferry operator in the past had refused to continue operations in high-tide as it was affecting the punctuality of the service as timing of the vessel would keep changing depending in the tide. When asked about the change in plans, Captain Devendra Manral, CEO of Indigo Seaways Pvt Ltd, said, “Both the Centre and the state governments have given assurance that they will resume dredging and provide us with sufficient draft as soon as possible.”

In the present form, the service that will become operational next week has been scaled down to one round-trip from the earlier two round trips. On February 24, the ferry will leave Ghogha at 2 pm and return from Dahej at 5.30 pm. The service will also be conducted only in daylight. However, as per the 14-day schedule that has been listed out by the ferry operator, no operations are scheduled for February 28 and 29. “We will not be operating on these two days, as the high tide is very early in the morning and we will not be able to match our operations with the tide,” Manral said.

The project, conceived by the Prime Minister when he was at the helm of affairs in Gujarat was launched by him in October 2017. However, in the last year of operations since October 2018, the service ran into rough weather after the ferry “Voyage Symphony” broke down at least four times due to dredging issues, especially due to lack of sufficient depth in the navigational channel and turning circle at Dahej, in Bharuch district. The operations were suspended for the longest period on September 24, 2019 after GMB cited heavy situation from river Narmada and conducted multiple dredging campaigns.

“The ferry service was to resume operations by February 21, 2020, but due to insufficient tidal waters the service will now resume from February 24, 2020,” stated an official release from the ferry operator on Friday.