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After coal, now foodgrain will be transported through inland waterways. And the first to receive foodgrain through this route will be the North-Eastern States.
“Due to doubling project of railway track in the North-East, transportation of foodgrain through Railway will not be possible from October 1. It has been decided to transport 35,000 tonnes of foodgrain from Kakinada (in Andhra Pradesh) to Karimganj (in Assam) via Bangladesh through inland waterways,” a senior Government official told BusinessLine .
The foodgrain will be made available to general public through the public distribution system.
Rice consignments The official said that earlier this year, a pilot project was carried out by ferrying 10,000 tonnes of foodgrain through this route.
Since, the North-East is a key rice consuming region, major part of the consignment would be rice.
Andhra Pradesh and surrounding regions have surplus rice, which is why Kakinada has been chosen as starting point of the journey.
Use of waterways has many benefits – transportation cost is less by almost 20 per cent vis-a-vis road and rail. Besides, it has much lower carbon emission and helps in reducing burden on road and rail in terms of freight transportation.
Though inland waterways have been used for transporting various machineries it has only been on a trail basis. It was coal which saw organised development of this means of transportation.
Last year, NTPC started using inland waterways to transport imported coal to its Farakka power station from Haldia in West Bengal.
Coal transport At least for next seven years, three million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of coal will be transported through the water route. Now work is on for issuance of tender to put in place similar kind of arrangement for another power project in Barh (Bihar). In due course, the plan is to use the same mechanism for power project in Bongaigaon in Assam.
An interesting part of foodgrain transportation through this route is use of India-Bangladesh Protocol.
This will facilitate travel through Ashuganj river port in that country. This port will also be used as disembarkation point for foodgrain after November-December, when water level enroute Karimganj will drop which will stop the movement of barrage, the official explained.
At that time, trucks will be used to transport grains from Ashuganj to other parts of North-Eastern States.
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