AMN/ WEB DESK
The first consignment of 200 metric tonnes of foodgrain carried by the cargo vessel MV Lal Bahadur Shastri left the Inland Water Terminal at Gaighat, Patna for Pandu, Guwahati via Bangladesh on Saturday. The journey through multiple waterways including International routes through Bangladesh will take 25-30 days to cover a distance of over 2350 kilometres.
Sharing this information in an article, Union Minister of Ports, shipping and waterways and Ayush, Sarbananda Sonowal said that the consignment will pass through Bhagalpur, Mahihari, Sahibganj, Farakka, Tribeni, Kolkata, Haldia, Hemnagar in India and then through Khulna, Narayanganj, Sirajganj, Chilmari in Bangladesh before entering Dhubri and Jogighopa in India.
This is the first time foodgrain consignment is moving on the Indo Bangla Protocol (IBP) route covering the river Ganga and Brahmaputra, two of the world’s largest rivers. The journey will be an integrated IWT movement via national waterway-1 on Ganga river, NW 97 on Sunderbans, IBP route and NW-2 on Brahmaputra, said the minister.
The cargo vessel movement is expected to establish the technical and commercial viability of the IWT mode using multiple wateways. It will provide a philip to the Northeast region’s industrial development by opening up an alternative route for transportation of goods.
This is part of Prime Minister Modi’s ‘Project Arth Ganga’ to reengineer the Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP) with a focus on economic activities around the Ganga river. The JMVP project aims to create infrastructure worth Rs. 4600 crore for capacity augmentation of Ganga for safe and sustainable movement of vessels up to 2000 tonnes.
The Minister said that this movement of cargo vessels could open up new vistas in internal and international trade. He said the development of national waterways as a powerful, well-organised network for cargo and people’s movement is intended to turn these into one of India’s strongest development anchors.