Posted on December 9, 2015
Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari has emphasised the need for developing inland waterways to improve the country’s economy.
Stating this while at a public meeting here on Saturday, he pointed out that China was transporting 47 per cent of its goods and passenger traffic through waterways. Similarly, Korea, Japan and several European countries were also transporting a substainal percentage of their goods and passenger traffic through waterways, he said and added that in India, only 3.5 per cent of the goods and passenger traffic were being transported through waterways.
Given that waterways offered a cheaper mode of transport, he said focus was now on improving the same and added that they had already taken up the Ganga-Haldia project, which would have 30 ports, including three multimodal ones. “Water transport is far cheaper than roads and railways. As against the cost of transport of `1.50 per km by road and `1 per km by rail, it will be only about 25 paise by waterways. Further, large volumes of material and men can be transported safely from one place to another throough waterways”, he explained.
Stating that Andhra Pradesh, with several water bodies, especially the rivers Godavari and Krishna, had great potential in this regard, he added the Buckingham Canal water transport network could be revived and modernised for such use. He wanted the state government to submit proposals in this regard and acquire necessary land for the purpose. “Once the proposals are submitted, the works will be grounded by next December”, he added.
The minister explained that inland waterways would also help in generation of employment and provide more business opportunities. He said that the Central Government was ready to provide a grant-in-aid of Rs 10 cr for a floating jetty and Rs 25 cr for a container jetty and wanted the state government to submit proposals for the same by March. He said that the proposals would be cleared immediately.
He said that except the Visakhapatnam Port all other government-operated ports, the Shipping Corporation of India, the Dredging Corporation of India and the Kochi Shipping Yard in the country were making a profit of Rs 6000 cr a year.
He offered to manage Bhavanapadu Port on a 50:50 ratio, which could assure 25 to 30 per cent revenue to the state government, instead of the 2 per cent it was getting from private players like Krishnapatnam Port.
He said that the government had set up a Port Rail Corporation in Mumbai to provide connectivity to all the minor ports in the country. He assured that he would discuss with the Visakhapatnam Port authorities ways and means to cut the losses.
Gadkari said that the government possessed the required quantity of cement for all the road works across the country. He offered to dredge the rivers in the state for sand, which could be used for both national and state construction requirements and the rest could be auctioned for profit by the state. He felt that this could significantly cut the project costs.
He said that as per the government policy, one per cent of the cost of the road projects would be spent on greenways and added that he intended to build green highways in the country.
