BenGaL to U.p. riVer transport in offinG
SIX CITIES HAVE BEEN IDENTIfiED FOR DEVELOPMENT OF WATER-BASED PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION IN GANGA RIVER.
Water-based passenger transportation may soon become a reality in India. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has identified six cities—Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Patna, Bhagalpur and Munger in Bihar and Kolkata and Haldia in West Bengal—to begin ferry services in the Ganges.
Well-placed sources said that the government is keen on starting the services before the general elections next year. As per initial reports, passenger fares will vary between Rs 5 and Rs 30 for a single journey between two cities. However, the fare structure and other financial modalities are being worked out.
An official of the IWAI said that the construction of the first multi-modal terminal at Varanasi on National Waterway-1 (river Ganga) is almost complete and is likely to be inaugurated in November by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The terminal is being built under the Jal Marg Vikas Project ( JMVP).
IWAI, the nodal agency implementing the National Waterways projects in the country, has completed al- most 84% of the civil construction of the Varanasi multi-modal terminal. The Narendra Modi government has laid much emphasis on the development of a waterways network in the country so as to decongest the highways and provide people with cheaper and less polluting mode of transport.
At least four passenger facilities are being constructed at different ghats in Varanasi where ferry services are planned to be started. Similarly, four facilities will be constructed in Patna for passenger services.
Officials said that a large population living in cities along the Ganga will benefit from the ferry services. The multi-modal terminal at Varanasi is a big-ticket project in the parliamentary constituency of the Prime Minister. Other multi-modal terminals are being constructed at Sahibganj in Jharkhand and Haldia in West Bengal.
The Rs 170 crore multimodal terminal at Varanasi, with waterway, road and rail connectivity, is a state-of-theart intervention for making Ganga navigable for cargo and passenger movement under the Rs 5,369 crore JMVP being implemented with the technical and financial support of the World Bank. JMVP was announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech in July 2014, soon after the Modi government came to power. The project will enable commercial navigation of up to 2,000 tonnes of ship in the Varanasi-Haldia stretch of Ganga.
The cargo to be handled in the terminal at Varanasi includes cars, stone chips, coal, cement, food grains, fertilisers, and sugar, among others. For this purpose, the IWAI has also made public 13 standardised ship designs suitable for large barge haulage on river Ganga.
“The new designs of the ships will help overcome the navigation challenges river Ganga throws up due to its complex river morphology, hydraulics, acute bends, shifting channels, meanders and current. It will serve as an enabler for domestic shipbuilding industry working on inland vessels and open huge possibilities for cargo and passenger movement on National Waterway-1. The specially designed vessels will navigate on low drafts with high carrying capacity and at the same time, be environment friendly,” a government official said, adding that the new designs will translate into a savings of Rs 30-50 lakh in the building of a vessel.
These vessels will sail even in depths of about two metres, carrying about 350 cars on a five-deck car carrier. Some of the designs would enable movement of bulk cargo carriers with capacity of 2,500 tonnes at three metres depth, thereby, removing almost 150 truckloads of pressure from the road or one full rail rake with the plying of just one such vessel.