Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, while presenting the Union Budget for 2013-14, made an announcement that the Lakhipur-Bhanga stretch of the Barak river in Assam, which totals 121 km, will be declared as National Waterway Number 6 (NW6).
The announcement follows the Cabinet’s decision to introduce a bill in Parliament in this regard. The development of NW6, it is felt, will facilitate navigation and cargo movement by barges, benefiting several states in the North-Eastern region.
The Union Cabinet has also sanctioned Rs 123 crore for preparing schemes and projects for creation of infrastructure facilities along NW6. The project is to be implemented in two phases — the first phase by 2016-17 and second by 2017-18.
Waterways transport
The Finance Minister’s announcement has not come a day soon. Since the Ninth Five year Plan, we’ve have been hearing about the probable declaration of several National Waterways, covering not only the Lakhipur-Bhanga stretch of the Barak river, but also the waterways in the Sunderbans in West Bengal and extension of the present National Waterway 3 from Kollam to Kasaragod in Kerala.
The present announcement comes close on the heels of Shipping Secretary’s statement a few days ago that the Union Government was working on policy measures to boost cargo movement by barges along the rivers and canals. It is a pity that the Government took such a long time to firm up policy measures to promote inland water transport (IWT).
The 1,620-km long stretch of the Hooghly-Bhagirathi-Ganga river system, between Haldia and Allahabad and covering West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, was declared National Waterway Number 1 (NW1) nearly three decades ago. Virtually nothing happened during the first quarter of a century of the declaration. Only for the past couple of years have we been hearing about the Government’s pious wish to transport imported coal by barges between Haldia and Farakka along NW 1 to meet part of the coal requirement of the NTPC’s giant thermal power plant in West Bengal. But the progress in this regard, it is learnt, leaves much to be desired. There have been several shifting of the deadline.
We also keep hearing about the tussle between two Central Government bodies over who will control Farakka Barrage lock-gates which, though critical for barge movement along NW beyond Farakka, are in a bad shape.
Faulty implementation
Over a period of 20 years between 1988 and 2008, four more waterways were declared as National Waterways. These included NW2 (891 km) between Sadiya-Dhubri in Assam in 1988, NW 3 between Kottapuram-Kollam stretch of West Coast Canal, Kochi-Pathalam Bridge stretch of Champakara Canal and Kochi-Ambalamugal stretch of Udyogmandal Canal totalling 205 km in Kerala in 1993, NW 4 (1,095 km) between Kakinada and Pondicherry cutting across Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in 2008 and NW 5 (623 km) Talcher-Dhamra stretch of Brahmani river, Geonkhali-Charbatia stretch of East Coast Canal and Charbatia-Dhamra stretch of the Matai river in 2008. The state of these four NWs is there for all to see. None of them have taken off yet.
Stung by the non-availability of iron ore traffic along the Zuari-Mandavi river, the Goa barge owners have been exploring opportunities in other parts of the country, not with much success though. The problems facing the river services with Bangladesh and, through Bangladesh, with Assam are well known. The list can be long.
A few issues need to be satisfactorily resolved before IWT can hope to take off. First, maintaining navigability of the waterways through dredging and other measures, which are not cheap. Second, introducing night navigation and third, ensuring proper cargo handling facilities at the jetties and connectivity. Finally, perhaps most important, unless the origin and destination of cargo is close to the river, no effort to promote IWT could hope to succeed.