Malé, Maldives – Rajje Transport Link (RTL), a high speed ferry service across the nation, will become the backbone of national development and substantial to its decentralization, affirms President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Twitter marking the official launch of RTL services yesterday.
RTL is a government led project under the ambition of connecting the whole country via a high speed ferry network, and is dubbed as the first phase of the designed “Integrated National Public Ferry Network.” It is expected to revolutionize connectivity across the archipelago, eliminate social and economic isolation from one island to the other, which in turn would bridge the small island economies to the national economy, making way for higher economic prosperity, President Solih has explained in his tweet.
This is the backbone of decentralized development, as we have longed for.
President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih
The first phase of this high speed ferry network services are to kick off with Zone 1, which encompasses the northernmost islands of HA, HDh and Sh atolls and is commissioned to Maldives Transport and Contracting Company by the Ministry of National Planning, Housing and Infrastructure.
With it’s launch today, MTCC has announced that further ferries will be conducted with the newly established ticket prices and that customers can purchase the tickets online via their customized website or the mobile application which is now available for downloads on Google Play Store and App Store for Apple. According to MTCC, the vessels used for RTL ferry services will have a capacity of 50 passengers, and reckons to be equipped with more convenient features than the one’s used in their current fleet.
MTCC has further conveyed that tickets will be exempted from children under the age of three years and persons with disabilities who are enrolled under NSPA. RTL ferry services are to have scheduled operations on seven days a week and MTCC deems it successful in keeping up with the schedule of its operations so far.
