Built for the Shipping Corporation of India subsidiary Mogul Line to transport Indian Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, the 9,500-gt Indian passenger-cargo ship Akbar (built 1971) is scheduled to slip its lay-up moorings in Chennai this week and make one final voyage that will end shipbreaking beaches of Alang.
The ship, built by Denmark’s Helsingor Skibsvaerft og Maskinbyggeri, was the last ever built to ferry pilgrims taking part in the Haj. During the off season it was used on a liner service between India and East Africa.
Political disruptions in East Africa and the growth of cheap travel killed off both these routes within a decade. But the Akbar’s accommodation for 1,500 passengers in four classes, and its vast cargo spaces, made it useful on the passenger and cargo run to Port Blair in the remote Andaman Islands, where it operated for the rest of its career.
During this later phase it has been owned by the Andaman & Nicobar Administration and managed by SCI.
The Andaman and Nicobar Administration withdrew the Akbar from service in 2014. At first the ship was scheduled to undergo an extensive refit to keep it in service for another five years, but when the shipyard cost estimates came it was deemed more fiscally prudent to spend the money on new ships.
SCI’s directly-owned 9,700-gt Harsha Vardhana (built 1974), another passenger ship built for the East Africa run that ended up in the Andaman Islands trade, was sold for scrap last year.
The Akbar and Harsha Vardhana are being replaced by a pair of Danish-designed 14,000-gt passenger ships that are being built at Cochin Shipyard. The first is scheduled to enter service in November this year with the second to follow early next year.
