Patna (Bihar):In a major move to promote use of inland waterways in the country, shipping minister Sarbanand Sonowal Saturday flagged off a vessel from Patna in Bihar to Pandu in Guwahati. The pilot vessel MV Lal Bahadur Shastri is carrying 200 metric tons of foodgrain, which will be delivered in Assam after a nearly 25-day long journey through waterways that will see it cover 2,350 kilometres sailing through Bangladesh to reach its destination. The vessel was flagged off from Inland Water Terminal Gaighat Patna.
Khalid Mohd Chaudhary, Shipping Minister of Bangladesh attended the event virtually. According to officials, the vessel will open a new gate to Assam which has often been called the gateway to the north-east to ensure seamless waterways connectivity through India’s two major rivers -- Ganga and Brahmaputra.
Officials said the planned intermodal terminal at Kalughat, Bihar with an outlay of Rs 78 crore, will provide a boost to the region’s socio-economic development and create multiple job opportunities. This will also help decongest the roads of North Bihar and provide an alternative route for transportation of cargo in this area.
Food and Consumer Minister Piyush Goyal, who attended the event through a video link, said this waterway from Patna to the North-East region can prove to be a viable alternative to the conventional mode of movement of foodgrains and goods for the region. For seamless navigation to the North-East region, two stretches of Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) route are being developed with Bangladesh.
India-Bangladesh-India waterway
This is the first food grain movement on this Inland Water Transport (IWT) route. The 25-30 days voyage will be an integrated IWT movement via National Waterway-1 (river Ganga), NW-97 (Sunderbans), Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) route and NW-2 (river Brahmaputra). While on its journey from Patna to Pandu (Guwahati), the vessel will traverse through Bhagalpur, Manihari, Sahibganj, Farakka, Tribeni, Kolkata, Haldia, Hemnagar, Khulna, NarayanganjSirajganj, Chilmari, Dhubri and Jogighopa.
The journey is expected to establish the technical and commercial viability of Inland Waterway mode using these multiple waterways. The IWT movement is also aimed at providing a fillip to North East Region’s industrial development by opening up an alternate route for transportation of goods.
Kalughat Waterway Terminal in Bihar
The Centre is constructing an inland waterway terminal on river Ganga at Saran District in Bihar. The site is located at a distance of 25 kilometres from Patna and the terminal’s location is directly connected to National Highway 19. The capacity of the terminal with one berth will be 77,000 Twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) per annum and the terminal has been designed to handle container traffic. The berth will be connected by approach trestles for movement of trucks, vehicles, operating and maintenance equipment. On-shore facilities such as roads, drainage, sewerage, water supply, and communication systems will be developed as part of the terminal development project.
Officials said the construction of this terminal will help decongest the jam-packed roads of North Bihar and provide an alternative route for transportation of cargo in this area, particularly to Nepal. Union Minister Goyal said the government has undertaken the Jal Marg Vikas Project with an outlay of Rs 4,600 crore for capacity augmentation of National Waterway-1 on Ganga river for the safe movement of vessels with a weight of 2,000 tons.
Goyal said these projects include construction of multi-modal terminals at Varanasi, Sahibganj, and Haldia, Ro-Ro terminals, jetties, vessel repair and maintenance facilities, among other things. He said 80 connectivity projects are in progress under Sagarmala to connect the commercial hubs with the ports. The minister also informed that 106 new waterways in 24 states have been declared as National Waterways, taking the total number of national waterways in the country to 111. He said development of these rivers would include maintenance of infrastructure for river shipping and navigation and warehouse facilities.
Use of waterways to supply foodgrains to North East
Though this is the first journey of a vessel from Patna to Assam carrying foodgrains through waterways, the Food Corporation of India had already used waterways to supply foodgrains to the North East region in the past. Goyal said that from 2014-15 to 2016-17, the FCI moved around 22,000 ton foodgrains to Agartala through the IBP waterway route during the gauge conversion in Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR).
Goyal also asked the FCI to improve compatibility with the riverine movement of foodgrains by upgrading warehouses and improving the packing to reduce the pilferage. He invited suggestions to increase the shelf life of foodgrains and how to increase the use of technology to improve efficiency, among other things.
The minister said the government was investing in waterways in a way that was never seen before and the Food Corporation of India was working with the Ministry of Shipping and Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) to explore and increase the riverine movement, an eco-friendly, clean and economical mode of transportation.
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