Rejecting the environment ministry’s repeated pleas, Shajahan Khan yesterday said the shipping ministry was not considering a permanent ban on plying of commercial vessels through the Shela river in the Sundarbans.
“We are not thinking of a permanent ban at the moment,” the shipping minister told a press conference after an inter-ministerial meeting at his ministry.
The issue has become a matter of grave concern after an oil tanker carrying 3.58 lakh litres of furnace oil capsized in the river flowing through the Sundarbans on December 9.
All but some 1.25 lakh litres of the oil spread over 50 to 60km stretch of the Shela and Pashur rivers, threatening to destroy the biodiversity and the ecosystem of the world’s largest mangrove forest, officials said yesterday.
