Patna: Residents and tourists in the city would have to wait for some more time to enjoy the floating restaurant facility in Patna. The efforts to repair the ship MV Ganga Vihar, which used to render this service, have come a cropper.
A source in the tourism department said instead of repairing the ship, the department was toying with the idea of purchasing a new one for re-launching the service which is not available since January 2017.
"We tried to rope in the services of agencies for repairing the ship through bidding but our efforts proved futile. When we tried to get the services of an agency on a nomination basis it proved costly as we were informed that about Rs 1 crore would be required for repair. That is why we are thinking of auctioning this ship and purchase a new one," a source said. He said for purchasing a ship, which is likely to incur an expenditure of Rs 3 to 4 crore, the department would have to prepare a detailed proposal which would require certain formalities and its approval at various levels. "Even after getting the proposal approved, we would have to float tenders for purchasing the ship and that process too would require time," added the source.
Even though the source didn't specify time that would be consumed in purchasing a new ship and put it into service, he did hint that even if the proposal would be fast-tracked it would take something between six to 12 months for purchasing a new ship.
The services of MV Ganga Vihar had been started in 2009. The ship used to take residents and tourists for a trip in the Ganga during which they could have availed the services of the restaurant that used to function on the ship. The facility was being managed by the Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation. The ship had been purchased at a cost of about Rs 2 crore.
This floating restaurant, however, stopped giving its services owing to technical problems and it was last seen plying on the river in January 2017 during the inaugural function of Prakash Parv, an event having been organised to mark the 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh.
