National Waterway-1: ₹ 4,633.81 cr Project Creating 1390 km Navigable Channel Between Haldia And Varanasi Set For Dec 23 Completion

The Ministry of Shipping is developing the Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP) on National Waterway-1 (NW-1) from Haldia to Varanasi (1390 km) with the technical and financial assistance of the World Bank at an estimated cost of ₹4,633.81 crores. The project would enable commercial navigation of vessels with capacity of 1500-2,000 DWT.

NW-1 (River Ganga) under JMVP, which was approved by the Cabinet Committee For Economic Affairs in Jan 2018, is currently under construction and set to be completed by Dec 2023.

Inland Waterways Authority of India is the implementing agency for the Jal Marg Vikas Project.

NW-1 is a waterway of truly national significance passing through four states and upon completion will serve the major cities of Haldia, Howrah, Kolkata, Bhagalpur, Patna, Ghazipur, Varanasi and Allahabad, their industrial hinterlands, and several industries located along the Ganga basin.

The project comprises of the following components

• Three multi-modal terminals at Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), Sahibganj (Jharkhand), and Haldia (West Bengal)

Project Progress

Constructions of multi-modal terminals at Varanasi and Sahibganj have been already completed. The construction of a multimodal terminal at Haldia and the navigational lock at Farakka have achieved substantial progress with 97.33% and 90.50% respectively.

A navigational lock is a structure used for raising and lowering ships/vessels between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways.

The new navigation lock incorporates several latest technology concepts when it comes to designing critical elements such as the lock gates (Mitre, Caisson) or the filling and emptying system, as well as in setting norms for its operation and maintenance and reliability so as to minimise downtime. It is likely to reduce the time a vessel takes to cross from current 2 hours to 38 minutes.

The work on creating a 'Least Assured Depth' of 3 m and bottom channel width of 45 m on the stretch between Farakka – Kahalgaon, Sultanganj-Mahendrapur and Mahendrapur-Barh is also progressing rapidly.

The objective of the project is to achieve a depth of 3 m from Haldia to Barh, 2.5 m from Barh to Ghazipur and 2.2 m from Ghazipur to Varanasi with 45 m width to enable commercial navigation of vessels with capacity of 1500-2000 DWT.

The contract for construction of IWT Kalughat Terminals has been awarded and work is likely to commence anytime soon.

Tender process for the remaining civil construction works of the project is in progress and majority of the procurement works are expected to be completed by end of FY 22.

The loan agreement Haldia to Varanasi for with the World Bank was signed in Feb 2018.

Originally approved at the cost ₹5,369.18 crores by CCEA, JMVP project cost was later revised to ₹4,633.81 crores. The World Bank is funding a loan of around ₹2400 crores ($317.22 million).

Project Benefits

The major benefits expected from capacity augmentation of NW-1 through the Jal Marg Vikas is the decongestion of the road and rail transport.

The existing road and rail systems in the region are congested and a supplementary mode of transport is necessary to divert the traffic from the rail and road networks. Capacity augmentation, coupled with appropriate infrastructure interventions, on NW-1 would lead to increased cargo traffic on large vessels between the trade centres along the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly River System and its hinterland and would help in de-congesting the road and rail networks.

According to Shipping Ministry, Inland water transport reduces transport cost for shippers, reduces congestion and accidents on highways, bring convergence between river transport with the other modes of transport, namely, road transport and rail transport, and provide savings in carbon emissions for traffic.

National waterways are ideally suited for transportation of bulk goods, such as coal, cement, food grains, fertilizers, stone chips, jute, steel, POL, LPG, Tea, containers, water, liquids, hazardous goods, such as chemicals, acids, etc and over-dimensional cargo.