An inquiry with objectivity into the boat tragedy in Ganga near Patna on Saturday evening has been ordered by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who said that appropriate action would be taken on the basis of the report. The two officials; disaster management principal secretary Pratyaya Amrit and Patna DIG Shalin, have been instructed to probe the tragic incident with full objectivity without taking care of any face and take into consideration all the angles, he added.
Talking to the media persons on Monday, the CM admitted gross negligence and violation of the rules and guidelines as well as standard operative procedure in plying of the boats and organisation of kite festival by the tourism department without proper arrangements. The CM also ordered that in future no Government department would be allowed to organise any such event without the permission of the Chief Secretary.
He pointed out that there was already a rule that no boat would ply after sunset and all the boats should be registered and have license. “It will also be probed how many boats have license and if they were obeying the standard operative procedures,” he added.
The Government sources pointed out that the CM was not satisfied with the clarification of the tourism department, the organiser of the kite festival, and action was likely to be taken against the Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation, a wing of the department. Incidentally, the tourism department was the nodal department for organising the Prakash Utsav only last week that earned kudos from various sectors for the successful organisation.
The CM was also irked over use of his photographs in the advertisements of the kite festival and said he has ordered probe if the laid guidelines of seeking permission of the CMO for use of CM’s photo had been taken. Nitish almost feigned ignorance of the kite festival and the newspaper ads saying the organisation was not in his knowledge and was purely one department’s event. “It is not necessary that everything in the Government happen in the knowledge of the CM. At that time I had other priorities and that could be the reason I was not informed about it,” he said but admitted that kite festival was being organised for some years and once he had also attended it.
Ignoring the suggestion of the BJP that the holding of human chain on January 21 be rescheduled, Nitish said its schedule would not be changed. The suggestion for postponement of human chain had been made by former Deputy CM Sushil Kumar.
“When there was a train accident in November last near Kanpur I had cancelled the programme of my report presentation but the BJP leaders in UP went ahead with their programmes on the accident day,” Nitish shot back at the BJP leader. He said two crore people would participate in over 11,000 km long human chain in support of prohibition and it would create a history and become a symbol of social change.