Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes a ride on an e-boat in Varanasi after launching them on May 1.
Highlights
- On May1, PM Narendra Modi had gifted 5 of the 11 promised e-boats
- But the boats don't have solar panels, can't be recharged from ghats
- The oars and propellers are plastic and can break easily, boatmen say
A week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted e-boats to the boatmen of Varanasi, the boats are running on oars and muscle power instead of electricity.
On May1, PM Modi had gifted 5 of the 11 promised boats. These were meant to be powered by rechargeable batteries. The recharge was supposed to come from solar panels.
But one week on, the ghats do not have the power points needed for the recharge.
"The batteries which came with the boat are drained... We need to take them out and get them charged, of course, at a cost," said Surat Sahni, who was one of the proud recipients of a boat last week.
Boatmen are also confused about the solar charging part of the scheme.
Some say the roof-mounted solar panels that are supposed to trap the abundant sunlight of the temple town, are yet to be fitted on the boats. Others say there won't be any solar panels, only charging points.
Moreover, boatmen say had the boats been fitted with the solar panel, they could have turned out to be unstable, since they would become too top-heavy.
The other common complaint is that the rudder and propeller are made of plastic which can break given there is little traffic management at the ghats and 2,500 boats keep running into each other.
Some boatmen doubt the "river worthiness" of the boats when Ganga is swollen during the monsoon months. These boats, they say, are more suitable for still waters - like lakes.
While giving away the e-boats, PM Modi had said they will reduce the operational costs of the boatmen, who have to spend Rs 500 a day on diesel.
The boatmen, however, have not given up. They plan to petition the Prime Minister and the power minister Piyush Goyal.
The battery powered boats, they feel, are an improvement over the noisy diesel engine boats others are still running.
The local BJP leaders, who had silently celebrated the PM's gifts as it had sent a strong political signal to the electorally significant nishad (boatmen) community, are trying to work the channels to ensure that the e-boats do not end up as e-waste.
Varanasi's BJP spokesperson Ashok Kumar Pandey described the problem as "conceptual".
"The boats were to get solar panels. But a panel is heavy and can make the boat unstable. So charging points at the ghats are a must to sustain the boats. We are trying to organise them soon," he added.