Surat: The First-of-its-kind Cruise Service between Surat and Diu was flagged off by Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Mansukh Mandaviya from Hazira Port of Surat to Diu today via video conferencing. This cruise will sail two round trips in a week. The one side voyage time of the cruise service would be approximately 13 to 14 hours and the cruise has the capacity of 300 passengers and has 16 cabins. It also has Gaming Lounge, VIP Lounge, Entertainment on Deck and other modern amenities. One side journey will cost Rs.900+taxes(per head).
Mandaviya said that the development of cruise tourism is the prime focus of the Government. “I feel very happy to announce that before 2014, there were 139 cruise calls at the Indian Ports but today we have 450 cruise calls in the country despite the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been a steady growth in the number of tourists traveling by Cruise Services since 2014. The number before 2014 was one lakh and the number of tourists in 2019-20 was 4.5 lakhs,” he added. He informed that the government was planning 6 International cruise terminals on both the west coast (Mumbai,Goa,Kochi) and east coast (Visakhapattanam, Kolkata, Chennai) of India.
Also read: Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways identifies new routes for RO-RO, RO-PAX and ferry services
It may be mentioned that in November, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated ‘Hazira-Ghogha’ RoPAX service and within four months, the Waterways Ministry said that one lakh passengers and thousands of vehicles utilised the ferry service to save journey time and the cost to travel from Hazira (Surat) to Ghogha (Bhavanagar). “The success of the ferry service has opened the gates for many more routes of water transportation in Gujarat and all over India,” Mandaviya said.
– global bihari bureau
