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Efforts on to develop NW 4-5: Shipping minister

December 9: Undeterred by the adverse report of a consultant, the Ministry of Shipping (MoS) is making efforts to take up development of National Waterways 4 and 5 through budgetary support or external sources.

"The result of a transaction adviser (consultant) appointed by the Department of Economic Affairs and Asian Development Bank (ADB) in March 2012 was not found to be encouraging and, as such, efforts are being made to take up the development of NW 4 and 5 through budgetary support or external sources," Minister of State for Shipping Milind Deora has said.

Earlier, the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) had explored the feasibility of developing commercially viable stretches under the public private partnership (PPP) mode with viability gap funding (VGF).

"Accordingly, a consultant was appointed for reviewing the detailed project report (DPR) and preparing and processing of PPP projects for developing the identified commercially viable stretches of these NWs in Phase - 1," Deora said.

Inland water transport is economically cheaper compared to road and rail and is environment-friendly and suitable for bulk cargo, the minister said.

He further said a project for transportation of 3 million tons per annum of imported coal for 7 years from Haldia (Sandheads) to NTPC's power plant at Farakka through National Waterway-1 is already under implementation.

IWAI has also identified more such projects which includes transportation of coal for NTPC's power plants at Barh (near Patna) and Bongaigoan (Near Jogighopa on National Waterway-2), transportation of fertilisers on NW-1 and food grains from Kolkata to Tripura through the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol routes.

Cargo movement on national waterways include fly ash from Kolkata to Bangladesh, over-dimensional cargo and other general cargo. River cruises too have been in operation on National Waterway-1, 2 and 3.

Incidentally, India had long ago declared five routes as national waterways (NWs).

The Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system from Allahabad to Haldia, covering a distance of 1,620 km through the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, had been declared NW – 1 in 1986.

However, River Brahmaputra (Dhubri-Sadiya-891 km) in the state of Assam was declared NW-2 in 1988.

The West Coast Canal (Kottapuram-Kollam), along with Udyogmandal and Champakara Canals – (205 km) in the state of Kerala, was declared NW-3 in 1993 and Kakinada-Puducherry Canals along with Godavari and Krishna rivers (1,078 km) – in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Union Territory of Puducherry was declared NW-4 in 2008.

The East Coast Canal, integrated with Brahmani river and Mahanadi delta rivers (588 km) in the states of West Bengal and Odisha, was declared NW-5 in 2008.

IWAI is developing the first three national waterways for shipping and navigational purposes by providing a navigational channel with targeted depth and width for most part of the year, aids for day and night navigation, fixed/floating terminals at selected locations for berthing and loading/unloading of vessels and inter-modal connectivity at select locations.