Union Minister for Shipping, Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari has mooted a proposal seeking allocation of 5 per cent of the Central Road Fund for development of Inland Waterways.
Speaking at the Infrastructure Session of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Conven-tion in Mumbai on Monday, Gadkari said that his Ministry had sent a proposal seeking allocation of 5 per cent of the Central Road Fund for development of Inland Waterways. “My Ministry has prepared the proposal, but the final decision will be taken by the Ministry of Finance. I am pursuing the matter” Gadkari said.
Created from a cess imposed on petrol and high-speed diesel, the Central Road Fund is a non-lapsable fund under the Central Road Fund Act, 2000. The funds are meant to be used to develop and maintain national highways, state roads and railway over and under bridges. The move to seek a pie in the CRF follows Government’s ambitious plan to tap India’s vast network of rivers and canals stretching 14,500 kms for moving goods.
“It is far more cheaper to transport goods by water than by road or rail. Currently, the cargo movement along the five existing national waterways is paltry 3 per cent of all cargo movement in India. We want to raise the share of waterways in overall cargo movements to 15 per cent,” the minister said.
Earlier, last week, Gadkari flagged off a cargo vessel carrying 200 Maruti cars from Varanasi to Kolkata as part of a pilot run. The Government has commissioned the Jal Marg Vikas project with the technical and financial support of the World Bank to augment capacity of River Ganga from Varanasi to Haldia. When completed in swix years, the Rs 4,200 crore project will facilitate movement of up to 2,000 tonne vessels.
Under the National Waterways Act 2016, 111 inland waterways have been declared as National Waterways. Of these, Allahabad-Haldia Ganga Waterway (NW1), Brahmaputra (NW2), West Coast Canal in Kerala (NW3), Mandovi river in Goa (NW 68), Sundarbans Waterway in West Bengal (NW97) and Zurari River (NW 111) are currently operational. Six more waterways are likely to be commissioned during this financial year.