Launch owners struggling to stay afloat
"If you seek comfort, no journey is better than a journey by launch. You book a room and you arrive at your destination well-rested. The sightseeing is a bonus," says Mehedi Hasan, a resident of Borguna's Bamna.
But, for him, the main concern is time.
He says it used to take around 14-16 hours to travel between his home in Barguna and Dhaka. And with options at hand, he now can't afford to waste a whole day.
"I can now travel to Dhaka from my village in less than 6 hours. The Padma Bridge has cut the travel time as well as added new comfortable busses to my route," he says.
Like Mehedi, a significant portion of people who used to use the waterways switched to less time-consuming road transportation, bringing the inland waterways business to its knees. Launch owners, who invested millions in building luxurious multi-storey ships, are now struggling to keep their operations afloat. The business insiders have also attributed the crisis to mismanagement by authorities and shrinking of routes and waterways due to poor navigability.
According to a report published in August last year, launch passengers have decreased by 35-45 percent on different routes. It counted data from July, 2022 to June, 2023.
It said around 50,000 people used to travel to various coastal districts by launch from Dhaka every day before the opening of Padma Bridge. Within a year of the opening of the bridge, this number decreased by 17,000 to 33,000 with a 34 percent drop.
It also said at least 80 launches used to leave Dhaka daily for various destinations. This number has been reduced by 20 to 60 during the stydy period.
However, business insiders say the drop in passengers is more than 70 percent. And since August last year, the situation has worsened significantly putting the launch owners in a financial crisis to the extent that they are now struggling to pay salaries to employees regularly, which, in turn, compelled many workers to either quit jobs or switch to other professions.
The owners now claim that only 5000-6000 passengers leave Dhaka in 30-35 launches every day.
Now, under a rotation system, the owners say, only two launches operate on the popular Dhaka-Barishal route daily. Before the crisis, at least a dozen luxurious launches like Sundarban-10, Manami, Parabat used to operate on the route daily. Similarly, only two launches now operate on the Dhaka-Charfassion route daily. A similar rotation system has been launched on the Dhaka-Patuakhali and Dhaka-Hatia routes, with one launch operating daily on each route.
However, according to the owners, these adjustments have not been enough to offset their losses.
Nazrul Khan, supervisor of the MV Parabat-12, says things have to improve fast to keep the business afloat, a sentiment shared by officials of other launch companies.
BM Ataur Rahman Atahar, senior vice-president of the launch owners' association and managing director of M/S Bapari Navigation Company, says, "The owners are now in such a position that they may have to quit their businesses."
Some owners are looking for alternative businesses to overcome the losses, he adds.
According to Mohammad Mostafizur Rahman, BIWTA deputy director at Dhaka Sadarghat, there are currently 10 launches operating on the Dhaka-Barishal route as the number of passengers dropped by about 70 percent.
"Most of the launches remain idle at the ghat [jetty]. The owners have resorted to cutting the number of staff to minimise the losses. Even after operating two launches daily on the Dhaka-Barishal and Dhaka-Patuakhali routes, they do not get desired number of passengers," he says.
It is unlikely that additional launches will operate during Eid amid this scenario, he adds.