Starting Christmas, sail between Mumbai-Goa

Unable to get a confirmed ticket on trains to and from Goa or are the airfares already steep for your Christmas vacation, then have no worries. Mumbai-Goa passenger ferry will be re-starting from this December, just before Christmas vacation.

The passenger vessel has already been anchored at Mumbai Port and is awaiting last few mandatory clearances.

“Sometime between December 20 to 25, the services between Mumbai and Goa will commence,” said Sanjay Bhatia, Chairman, Mumbai Port Trust. ‘Expression of Interest’ to commence such a passenger service was floated in February 2015.

Each sailing will have a capacity of 400 passengers, with different travelling class options available for passengers to select from. From Mumbai as well as Goa, the service will be available every alternate day as only one vessel is being put into operations. It will take roughly a day to travel the distance.

The fare structure has not been shared by the authorities as they plan to make it public only a few days before the launch, when the bookings will be made open. It may also have halts along the Konkan coast of Maharashtra.

However, during the four months of monsoon, this service will remain unavailable and public will have to rely on Konkan Railway or road transport or flights.

During tourist season, Mumbai-Goa sector witnesses rush that existing modes of transport are unable to cope up with, therefore, leaving a scope for additional travel modes.

In fact, Konkan Railway had operated Double Decker Premium special train during peak season only to clear the additional crowd. Recently, it also introduced Tejas Express on the same route.

The last such passenger sailing service between Mumbai and Goa was way back in 1991, when there were two ships, namely, Konkan Shakti and Konkan Sevak.

But these vessels were sent to Sri Lanka and thereafter the services never resumed. These voyage used to take around 24 hours.