Panaji: The Pride Group, who owns off shore casino vessels, today clarified on the rumours surrounding the third casino being permitted of the company in Goa.
The picture of Casino vessel was being circulated on social media claiming that the Pride Group has brought the third casino in addition to its Pride One and Pride Two.
Group’s Director Shrinivas Nayak has clarified that it is the third vessel but not the third casino.
“Our both vessels as per shipping laws needs dry docking and proper dry docking takes two and half to three months or sometimes four months and since licence fees is increased to Rs 40 crore and since we have to pay huge running expenses during dry docking period without a single penny revenue it is becoming difficult to any operator to operate,” he said.
Nayak added “At the same time the passenger safety is also important and also fulfilling all norms are important. So we decided to have replacement vessel which has come yesterday.”
“The vessel will first go for its own dry docking and when its dry docking is completed then that vessel will come and replace first Pride One and Pride Two,” he added.
“Probably there is a monsoon period also in between. Both vessels will go for dry docking because the commercial requirements are at one side while on the other side it is important for us to have corporate responsibility for passenger safety,” he said.
“I think what we have done is a noble step considering the investment involved. We at Pride Group always believe that customer safety is more important than earning revenue so we have decided that we should have replacement vessel,” he added.
“Presently it is going to replace our vessel for dry docking. Later other operators can also use it as a replacement vessel to dry dock their own vessel,” he said.
