Mumbaikars who were eagerly waiting for the roll-on-roll-off (Ro-Ro) services have a reason to be upset with the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT). The Mumbai-Alibaug Ro-Ro vessels will now only carry 400 passengers and 80 vehicles, this comes after the MbPT relaxed its norms.
Earlier the Mumbai-Alibaug Ro-Ro vessels could have carry 600 passengers and 100 vehicles but after MbPT relaxed its norms the numbers came down. According to DNA, the MbPT had a month ago initiated the process of purchasing a vessel for RoRo of around Rs 40 crore in partnership with Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT), MMB and City Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) will jointly procure the vessel for RoRo services by chipping in Rs 10 crore each.
An MbPT official told the leading daily, “We have made changes due to the request of the bidders but this will not make any major difference considering we have said minimum 400 passengers, so one can also have 550. The traffic will get streamlined and divided once we get in more vessels if the response of this single vessel is good enough.”
The Ro-Ro vessel will take passengers from Mumbai’s Ferry Wharf (also known as Bhaucha Dhakka) in Mazgaon to Alibaug’s Mandva port. This service also helps those travelling to Alibaug, Goa and other places like Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg.
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