Bhojpur deputy district commissioner Rajdev Singh (centre) visits Khaira village in Bhojpur on Tuesday. Telegraph picture

North Bihar’s lifeline — ferry services across turbulent rivers in monsoon — has turned out to be a threat for thousands of villagers.

The hapless village residents have no option but to submit themselves to the inexperienced hands that operate poor-maintained unregistered boats across the Sone, Kosi and the innumerable tributaries of the Ganga.

The toll in Monday’s tragedy rose to 18 with 11 more bodies being fished out on Tuesday, said NDRF commandant Tanuj Kumar, adding that some 25-odd people were still missing.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the accident was caused by a hole in the middle-sized boat that was not even registered. Only 20 boats are registered in Bhojpur district, while 150-odd boats ply several times a day ferrying villagers across the Ganga, the Sone among others.

According to officials concerned, a boat can be registered by a nominal challan of Rs 40 but hardly anyone bothers to pay any heed to it.

“Regions on the Ganga like Shahpur Ojha ke Simariya, Barishwan and Badahara are flood-prone where a boatman usually gets Rs 200 as labour charge,” said Rajiv Kumar, a local resident. However, training is hardly imparted to a boatman. In Bhojpur district, 10 policemen were trained how to pull a boat while 31 divers have the skill to rescue in case of emergency but the boatmen are not regularly trained.

Bhojpur district transport officer Jai Kumar Dwivedi said: “The 20 registered boats operate in the Ganga. A survey is in the pipeline to identify and register other boats.”

Buxar DM Vinod Singh Gunjial echoed: “The officers concerned have been instructed to take stock of the boat registration in the district.”

Although ghats are in better condition in Ara and Buxar, most of those in the rural areas are in poor shape. “The condition in Kushalpur, Umarpur, Rajpur, Nainijore among others is simply precarious where incidents of drowning are quite common,” said a flood-control department official in Buxar.

A district transport department official said: “It is the responsibility of the district administration that it should take stock of ill-maintained boats.”

Bhojpur sub-divisional magistrate Dharmesh kumar said: “The district transport officer held a meeting with boatmen on Tuesday to streamline the system in the district”.

Boatman Mangaroo Choudhary said: “There is a union of boatmen here but it is not so active. The matter of passenger fare has always been an issue for us but we are yet to find a solution. We use commercial boats for ferrying passengers, too. Many a time, we tell women passengers to get down if the boat is overcrowded, but they do not follow our suggestions. In fact, we have life jackets ready but don’t know how to use it”

Trained boatman is also difficult to find in Madhubani district, which has around 165 ghats on different rivers and their tributaries. In most of the cases, a boat is pulled by a novice, leading to frequent mishaps.

A district administration official in Madhubani said: “Around 300 people were trained by a team of National Disaster Response Force but they were not given practical training of pulling a boat.”

“Most of the time, rickety boats are pressed into service as its private owners believe in making money rather than seeking safety of passengers. Government boats can hardly meet the rush,” Amarnath Anand, a resident of Phulpras village, said. “Each river has its own flow of current but untrained people have no clues about it resulting in accidents,” he added.