Locate Indian naval vessel missing since December 2014: AIADMK

NEW DELHI: The issue of disappearance of a naval vessel with eight crew members, sailing from Andaman islands to Car Nicobar in December last was raised today in Rajya Sabha by an AIADMK member who sought government's intervention to find it.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Sasikala Pushpa (AIADMK) said the vessel ' Our Lady of Vallankannie' sailing from Andaman to Car Nicobar island has been missing since December 15 last year after bad weather and claimed that Coast Guard and other agencies have made no effort to locate it.

"No progress has been made in locating the vessel. What infrastructure mechanism is there for such operations that India is unable to locate a vessel with all its might," she asked.

The AIADMK member alleged that when the Malaysian aircraft vanished, the entire world helped in the search operations but no serious effort was made to locate this vessel.

"Disaster management is very poor and weak and is not upto the mark," she alleged, adding that government should make serious efforts to locate the vessel as families of those on board are still waiting in hope that their relatives will return soon.

With members from all opposition parties associating with the demand, Deputy Chairman P J Kurien told Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi that "It is a serious matter. You are doing a good job in helping quake victims in Nepal and evacuating people from Yemen. What about these poor people. Come back to the House with a statement."

At this, Naqvi assured he would revert after taking up the issue with the concerned Minister.

Raising another issue, Motilal Vora (Cong) said the health of children was deteriorating due to rising pollution and lungs of 35 per cent of children were affected across the country. He said the situation was bad in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and steps be taken to check their health.

Vora also called for promoting Yoga in schools so that health of children could be taken care of.

Sanjay Sinh (Cong) said alternative schemes for farmers like fisheries should be promoted under central schemes to help them tide over the crisis as they continue to suffer crop loss due to global warming and unseasonal rains and hailstorm.