As many as 3,462 tourists, including 11 foreign nationals, visited the Bhitarkanika National Park for celebrating the New Year on Friday, but they faced a lot of problems in getting ferry service and many of them had to return empty handed due to non availability of boats.
According to Mahim Kumar Pal, a tourist, he and his friends came to the Bhitarkanika for celebrating the New Year. But unfortunately, they failed to hire a boat due to non-availability of sufficient boats.
Another tourist Nilambika Sahu, who came with her family members, alleged that due to shortage of boats, they had to wait at least four hours and later hired a boat for Rs4,500 to ferry up and down from Gupti to Dangamal.
Due to shortage of boats, the boat owners charged double the actual rate and the tourists were forced to pay the amount, alleged Sahu.
Dibakar Sahu alleged that though Bhtarakanika is a world famous national park, but due to shortage of boats available in the park, more than 50 per cent of tourists return home without site seeing.
The boats are managed by the brokers, who are charging hefty amount for allotting a boat. The forest department should streamline the boat service under its control and also engage more boats during the peak tourist season so that the tourists do not face any trouble to hire a boat, suggested Sahu .
When contacted, Rajnagar DFO Bimal Prasanna Acharya stated that he is aware of the problem. As there are only 35 boats engaged, so hardly about 700-800 people can get the service per day. Generally, such problem occurs from December 20 to January first week every year since during the period the tourists flow is high. But after that most of the boat operators sit empty handed, he said.
However, Acharya assured that steps would be taken for solving the problem as the forest department would engage more boats in the coming days.