Government promises to develop rivers as waterways
In a robust move the Road and Transport Ministry has planned to modernise the waterway network and has also declared 111 rivers across the country into national waterways, mentioned in the Bill passed by the Parliament. The total budget for these initiatives has been provided at around Rs.800 crore. The Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has emphasised the need to connect the country’s 50,000 kilometres of sea and river fronts as waterways and the Ministry is thinking of new ways to raise almost Rs.70,000 crore for the development of this project. With an aim to boost national waterways, the government is preparing an action plan and has announced turning the 111 rivers across the country into national waterways, with a cost of Rs.800 crore. Apart from this, he reiterated that the government would also require around Rs.70,000 crore initially on the development of the ongoing rivers’ project as they are looking for new ways of financing. The government was committed to developing this project as an environmental friendly mode of transport, which assured to decrease the huge 18% logistics cost in India. The five rivers of India that have been declared as National Waterways (NWs) include the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system, the Brahmaputra, West Coast Canal along with Udyogmandal and Champakara Canals, Kakinada- Puducherry canals along with Godavari and Krishna rivers, the east coast Canal integrated with the Brahmani river and the Mahanadi delta rivers. “The National Waterways Bill 2015, for declaration of 106 additional waterways as National Waterways has been passed by the Lok Sabha during winter session, 2015,” the Ministry of Shipping said in a statement. “To develop National Waterways a sum of Rs.284.52 crore was provided in 2015-16 and Rs.350 crore has been allocated in 2016-17,”it said. The National Waterways project is becoming a focus area for the Modi government. The project will not have any shortage of funds as Rs.800 crore has already been allocated to see to jumpstart the process into fruitful completion and in the development of waterways.
March 14, 2016 | 04:00pm IST
to success.