Varanasi boatmen demand lifting ban on plying of boats

With boating suspended for the last one-and-a-half months, the boatmen were staring at a financial crisis

A delegation of Varanasi boatmen met assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Awadhesh Pandey on Monday and submitted to him a memorandum of their demands, including allowing them to ply boats in the Ganga. The ACP assured them to look into their demands sympathetically.

The boatmen demanded that operation of boats should be allowed in the Ganga as the flood water had been receding. (HT Photo)

The boatmen demanded that operation of boats should be allowed in Ganga river as the flood water had been receding. According to central water commission, the Ganga was flowing at 64.82 metre in Varanasi on Monday.

The boatmen also held a meeting in which they unanimously decided that they should be allowed to operate now as flood water was receding.

In the meeting, boatman Shambhu Manjhi said, “The boats’ operation was suspended for over a month due to which boatmen couldn’t earn even a single paisa, and now all of them were facing financial crisis.”

Boatman Pradeep Sawhney said that keeping in view their problems; plying of boats should be allowed in the Ganga.

There are around 1,200 boats in Varanasi and boatmen ply them in the river to earn their livelihood.