100-year old Indus Queen facing decay

MULTAN: Indus Queen, an over a century old small ship, that was once the only transport for Zaireen to commute between Chachraan Sharif and Kot Mithan Sharif through mighty River Indus, has been facing decay since long.

The ship was built during the reign of Sir Sadiq Abbasi, the Nawab of Bahawalpur, for the royal family to sail through River Sutlej when it used to be full of water.The three-storey ship was gifted by the Nawab to renowned Sufi saint of Kot Mithan Hazrat Khawaja Ghulam Fareed in 1917 and remained engaged in transporting Zaireen to and from Chachraan Sharif and Kot Mithan Sharif where the mausoleum of the saint is located and attracts thousands of devotees every year.Around five decades ago, the ship caught fire and was parked at the bank of River Indus. It had the capacity to accommodate around 400 passengers and equipped with the facility to cook food for them. A project was conceived on the proposal of district government Rajanpur and TDCP to rehabilitate and decorate the historical ship to convert it into a floating restaurant and to utilise it to provide a joy-ride facility to the people to promote tourism. Habibur Rahman Gilani, who was the Managing Director of TDCP few years ago, had taken keen interest in the proposal. Experts were called from Karachi shipyard who recommended its rehabilitation at the site and to replace its older and slower diesel engines by new engines. However, since then the project had remained unattended after the experts sent the cost estimates of Indus Queen rehabilitation to the district government. It may be due to the heavy cost, the financial constraints or may be some other reasons, according to a TDCP official who did want to be named. The ship is now at the bank of River Indus