Two-Yr-Wait For Aid Prolongs For Kin Of 12 Sailors As Firm Points To Licence Termination

TWO years of wait notwithstanding, the dilly-dallying of Mumbai-based RPSL agent nimbus Maritime Services over paying compensation to 12 Indian sailors who were killed during a collision between two vessels in Russia in January 2019 has snuffed out what little hope the families of the deceased had, when the firm claimed that its licence got cancelled in March, thus seizing it of any liability to part with any aid to them.

- C Shiva Kumar

MT Candy was a Tanzanian flagship carrying LPG and is said to have been engaged in a ship-to-ship transfer of cargo at the time of the explosion in Kerch strait in Russia.

Sivaraj, the brother of Saravanan Nagarajan of Tirukovilur in Kallakurichi – who was one among the 12 sailors onboard the vessel, said that nimbus had been dilly-dallying on the issue of compensation for the past two years to the families. “Sameer Dalvi of nimbus has been promising us compensation for the past two years whenever we enquired with him,” he said. Things took a different turn recently as Sameer asked Sivaraj not to bother him again as his firm’s licence got cancelled, thus leaving the families in the lurch.