THE GOAN NETWORK
VASCO
Suspense over the new casino vessel “Angrosy IV” in the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) on board the mother ship ‘Eide Trader’ on Wednesday was finally cleared, when a company official said the vessel was meant to replace an existing casino ship and not an addition to the fleet of casino ships owned by the group.
After being offloaded from the ‘Eide Trader’ on Thursday, the Angrosy IV was docked alongside Berth 2 at MPT on Thursday morning.
Highly placed sources in MPT informed that senior officials of the Casino Pride Group performed a pooja and prayers before the casino ship was offloaded in the water.
Director of Casino Pride Group Shrinivas Nayak cleared the air and said the vessel was only a replacement to the existing casino ship and not an addition to the fleet of casino ships owned by the group.
“This is definitely not the third casino ship as people claim. This is a replacement for our old casino ship which needs to be dry docked for a period of 2-3 months and neither we nor other operators can afford to shut the casino business for so long,” explained Nayak, while speaking to reporters.
“First, this ship itself will go for dry docking and later, it will replace one of our existing casino ships. This ship is of the same capacity and same floors as compared to our other two casino ships.”
“Other casino operators may also need dry docking for their casino ships as it is a mandatory process,” Nayak said
Nayak explained that as per shipping rules, their vessels needed dry docking and added that proper dry docking would take about 2-3 months.
“Since licence fees have increased to Rs 40 crore and given that we have to
pay huge running expenses during the dry docking period, it becomes difficult for any operator. We have also to think about passenger safety and hence, we decided to bring in a replacement casino vessel.”
“This vessel will first go for its own dry docking and when its dry docking is completed, that vessel will come and replace Pride One and later Pride Two.”
“We at Pride Group always believe that customer safety is more important than earning revenue, so we have decided that we should have a replacement vessel.”
“Presently, it will replace our vessel for dry docking. Later, other operators can also use it as a replacement vessel to dry dock their own vessel,” Nayak added.
