Guwahati: The inland water transport department is ill-equipped to handle the flow of passengers with very few vessels.

On the other hand, private boats are being run by lessees on a temporary basis because of loopholes in the tendering process.

"There are altogether five ghats in the city; of which only two are run under the department. Very few of their vessels are fit to operate in this rainy season. Three ghats are operated on a temporary basis by lessees with a minimum of eight private bhutbhutis each. There are 107 mechanised country boat services in all over the state," said Bharat Bhushan Dev Choudhury, the director of the inland water transport department (IWTD). Three ghats - Guwahati-North Guwahati, Guwahati-Madhyam Khandha and Guwahati-Puruwa - are running on a temporary basis with one government vessel each. There are more than 10 government boats for all these ghats, but due to technical problems and more fuel consumption, most of these are not operating," said Bikramaditya Choudhury, executive engineer of the department.

Guwahati Rajaduwar and Pandu-Amingaon ghat are operated by the department.

"Tenders are notified for operation of services at ghats under the IWTD, but very few apply," said Musfiquar Rahman, the joint director of the department. "Most of them lack the documents required. Even if asked to produce documents, they fail to do so. We are bound to make temporary arrangements to continue the service. Sometimes the tendering process falls through without a single application."

"We seek tenders from the public and the highest bidder is entrusted with the boat services for a month. After that, we again seek the highest bidder. This is set as a temporary guideline in case of failure of the tendering process," said Choudhury.

"The boat owners have to pay a toll charge of Re 1 per passenger in private boats and Rs 2.50 in government ones to the lessee. The lessee in return has to pay Rs 415 per day to the department for a month," said Purananda Das, a junior engineer of the Guwahati-Madhyam Khandha Ghat.

"The maintenance and fuel charges for private boats are borne by the owners, whereas in case of the department vessels, the lessee provides the fuel and we bear the maintenance costs," said Das.

"We had only one bidder last time, who is only running the ghat now. The survey cell under the department awards the fitness certificate to the bidder, then this is re-checked by us on the ground. This fitness must be renewed at the end of each year," said Das.

"I have five section assistants and a sub-engineer under me for the maintenance of the ghat. And I supervise the whole process in operating the ghat of Guwahati-Madhyamkhandha. There was a capacity of 15 passengers in the SB Brahmaputra boat who could claim insurance, in case of death. But this is violated most of the time as the passengers climb on the boat without tickets in a hurry to reach their homes, despite knowing the fact that 8-10 private boats run after every half an hour," said Das.