The National Waterway-5 project has been put on forward track with Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi and Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) Chairman Nutan Guha Biswas on Tuesday making a joint review of the progress and resolving the issues that cropped up during the process of the project’s field-level implementation.
The meeting was held at the State Secretariat here. Padhi asked the Collectors of the concerned districts to undertake a survey of the villages along the riverbanks and identify the points that are generally used by the people for crossing the river. Biswas assured that the IWAI would provide all assistance for setting up ferry ghats on those points for carrying forward the river dredging works.
The issues relating to dredging of the river course, dumping of the dredged materials, transportation of the dredged materials, repair and maintenance of the embankment roads, protection of river banks, preparation of tender documents redesigning and development of the existing bridges coming on the waterway, etc., were discussed and resolved.
It was decided to carry forward the first phase of the project from Dhamra/Paradip to Pankapal through Mangalagadi. The distance from Dhamra to Mangalagadi is 28 km and from the Paradip Port to Mangalagadi 67 km. The distance from Mangalagadi to Pankapal is 106 km.
There are 12 Railway, NHAI and PWD bridges on this stretch which would be redesigned and customised for the waterway. The works would be carried out in close cooperation between State and Central agencies. An SPV has been formed for the purpose involving the State Government, the Paradip Port Trust and the Dhamara Port Company.
As per preliminary estimates, an amount of Rs 1,243 crore would be invested in the project in coming four years.
The proposed waterway consists of rivers like Brahmani, Kharsuan, Kani, Dhamra, Mantei, Mahanadi delta and the East Coast Canal spread over the States of Odisha and West Bengal. It stretches over 588 km, out of which 492 km is in Odisha and the rest 91 km in West Bengal. The waterway has been designed to provide connectivity between the Paradip and Dhamara Ports, the Kalinganagar industrial cluster and the Mahanadi Coalfields.