The Atlantic, a fishing vessel that was illegally converted into a double-decker passenger boat, and crammed with tourists way beyond its capacity, capsized in Tanur of Kerala’s Malappuram district on Sunday, May 7. Twenty-two people were killed in the disaster, including 13 children. Saithalavi, who lost his wife and four daughters and six other family members in the accident, has many questions for government authorities. He asks how the boat was allowed to operate without a licence, registration, and safety clearance for nearly three weeks, leading up to the deadly tragedy near Thooval Theeram.
“A boat without a licence plied for so many days. There were many police officers at the beach. Did any of them ask to see the boat’s licence? Did a single officer question the boat staff about overloading? It is not a boat meant for 35-40 people. How did it conduct services without the required paperwork from the municipality? All these questions remain, and the authorities must provide answers,” Saithalavi demanded.
As the residents of Tanur and Parappanangadi Municipalities deal with the shock of the unprecedented tragedy, authorities of various government departments — police, civic officials, maritime officials — have been deflecting the blame from one department to another. A major accusation being raised is that the boat Atlantic had been conducting services for weeks without registering with the Kerala Maritime Board, as required by law.
The Survey and Certification Rules 2022 framed under The Inland Vessels Act, 2021 call “change of vessel type” a “major conversion or modification” that designated authorities must certify as being in compliance with the Inland Vessels (Design and Construction) Rules, 2022. An officer at the Kerala Maritime Board, the licensing authority of inland vessels, told TNM that the rules require boat owners to submit an application before the Board for any modification or alteration of a floating vessel.
“The drawings submitted for this purpose have to be approved by a 10-member external panel including experts in ship technology and maritime engineering. Following this, the Board’s chief surveyor has to grant permission for construction work. Once the modification is completed, the vessel is then tested for stability, safety requirements such as fire safety, life jackets, pollution control norms etc. If and when satisfied, the application is then forwarded to the registering authority (an Maritime Board officer at the port of registry in Beypore) who grants the boat its licence,” he said.
Section 87(2) of The Inland Vessels Act, 2021 says that failure to adhere to these steps can be punished with a fine of up to Rs 10,000 for every instance of non-compliance found. The Maritime Board officer who spoke to TNM said that this doesn't often serve as a sufficient deterrent for defaulters.
Atlantic, owned by Nassar Pattarakath, was originally a fishing boat that was recently modified into a passenger boat. IRS officer TP Salim Kumar, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Kerala Maritime Board, told TNM that the owner had started to modify the boat without the Board’s approval, and directly applied for registration. The boat’s registration had not been completed at the time of the accident, he said. “
The owner had initiated the modification without prior permission, and had applied for registration at the port of registry in Beypore. The registering authority wrote to me about this, with a recommendation that the registration process be initiated after levying a Rs 10,000 fine. As this recommendation is in keeping with the law, I gave the go-ahead,” he said.
“However,” Salim Kumar continued, “before the registration process was concluded, the boat started services.” According to him, a safety and stability test conducted on February 12 had found certain shortcomings in the boat, and further changes were recommended. This was followed by a second test on April 12, and the seating capacity was fixed at 24 persons, inclusive of the staff on board. “Before the registration process was completed, on April 15, the boat began services at Thooval Theeram,” he said. When the boat capsized, it was carrying around 35-40 people.
According to Salim Kumar, the Maritime Board is only a registering authority and does not have any regulatory role.
Fisherfolk present at the accident site told TNM that the conversion of the small fishing boat to a passenger boat was bound to end in tragedy. Rasheed from Parappanangadi and Bavas from Tirur said that the narrow base of the fishing boat was not suitable to hold the two tiers that were built on top of it. “A double-decker boat should have been larger at the base to be able to balance out the height and the additional weight it would carry,” the fishermen said.
The Maritime Board officer who spoke to TNM attributed the accident to three major lapses. “The boat did not have proper registration, the police did not conduct any inspection, and the local (civic) body did not give a no-objection certificate (NOC),” he said. The officer further highlighted that the upper deck of the Atlantic was not meant to be occupied, as per the test conducted on April 12 when the Board fixed the seating capacity at 24 persons.
A sub-inspector at the Tanur police station, Sukeesh Kumar, told TNM that patrolling vehicles were regularly present at the beach. So how come the police did not notice any of the violations in the weeks prior to the accident? “We were engaged in regulating the crowd, the traffic and parked vehicles on the road to the beach,” he said. On being further pressed, the SI said the police had told the boat operators to stop services by 6 to 6.30 pm, but hadn’t made any other interventions. However, Saithalavi’s neighbours told TNM that they had alerted the police and other authorities about the boat’s overloading on several occasions.
Circle Inspector Jeevan George of the Tanur police station told TNM that the investigation led by Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) Benny VV is progressing under three teams of officers. Denying his department’s role in the tragedy, the CI said, “The police is not the department in charge of regulating boat services.”
Civic officials too denied responsibility for regulating or monitoring the boat services. Tanur Municipality secretary Anupama T said that water transport does not come under the local body’s jurisdiction. “Since this is a vessel conducting services in the river, the Municipality does not have the technical capacity to regulate it. We are not responsible for its conduct,” she said. The secretary added that the only role of the Municipality is to provide the NOC once all the required paperwork, including the vessel’s registration, is completed. “The Municipality had not issued an NOC to the Atlantic. We had not received any application in that regard either,” she said. Anupama said she intends to write to the tourism department to gain further clarity on the regulatory responsibilities of various departments, adding that further action will be based on whatever orders are issued by the state government.
Chairman of Tanur Municipality PP Shamsuddeen also said that the only responsibility of the local body was to provide the NOC. “It is the ports department, water transport department, Maritime Board, and tourism department that are in-charge of the various steps from licensing to regulation,” he said. He said that when the Municipality officials received informal complaints over the phone regarding illegal boat operations, they had notified the local police. “Local residents had alerted councillors about the boat overloading and other issues. This was around the time of Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations (which happened on April 21-22 this year). We had alerted the police about this, even though no formal complaint was given,” he said. When asked if he had followed up with the police about the complaints, Shamsudden said he was not aware whether the police had acted on them.
“The authorities should open their eyes, and those responsible for the accident should be given the punishment they deserve,” Saithalavi said, as authorities continue to wash their hands of the responsibility over the death of 22 persons, including 13 children.