Delay in completion of dredging work on Mattancherry Jetty premises irks passengers

Delay in completion of dredging work on Mattancherry Jetty premises irks passengers

The West Kochi Passengers’ Association has petitioned the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), seeking Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s attention to the inordinate delay by the Irrigation department in dredging the premises of the Mattancherry Jetty, which had resulted in ferries from mainland Kochi being unable to call at the Jetty since 2018.

Ferries from mainland Kochi could have resumed operations to Mattancherry years ago but for the ‘apathy and indifference’ shown by the Irrigation department in dredging the premises of the jetty that was renovated recently. This has in turn hampered the State Water Transport department’s (SWTD) plans to resume ferry service to the thickly-populated region, said M.M. Abbas, president of the association, in the letter.

On its part, the Irrigation department is unable to even confirm a deadline to complete the dredging work. This casts doubts on whether the department’s contractor is delaying the work to demand more money to execute the work. The SWTD that owns the jetty also should have proactively intervened in the issue. It appears that a section of politicians from the region are trying to scuttle the resumption of ferry service to Mattancherry, he added.

The SWTD jetty that is located adjacent to the Kochi water metro’s upcoming jetty is a historic one and is said to be one of the oldest ferry terminals in Kerala. It provided direct waterway connectivity from the region to the mainland. Ferries of SWTD called at the jetty up to 2018, when the deluge is said to have resulted in an accumulation of silt in the channel that led to the jetty, endangering the safety of boats.

Expressing concern at the delay in dredging the jetty premises, officials of SWTD said they had even set apart a ferry to operate in the corridor and also installed rubber fenders on the jetty complex to safely receive ferries. “The Irrigation department must complete the dredging and inform us of the same so that ferries can be deployed on the route where there is high demand, since the road route, which also has innumerable bottlenecked bridges, is very lengthy and congested.”

The Mattancherry Water Metro Action Council too has been on the warpath, seeking speedy completion of dredging of the channel. It cited how residents, traders, and tourists had to alight from ferries at Customs Jetty in Fort Kochi and walk or board autos to reach their destinations in Mattancherry during the past seven years. The delay also affected the number of tourists visiting Mattancherry, it said.

Sources in the Irrigation department said the contractor who was entrusted with the dredging failed to do so, despite February being set as the revised deadline.