Question : NATIONAL INLAND WATERWAYS

(a) the details of the National Inland Waterways in the country including under construction, State-wise;

(b) whether the development/ maintenance work of National Inland Waterways including Kollam-Kottapuram stretch of National Waterway-3 (NW-3) has been completed;

(c) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons for delay in the progress of work along with the corrective action taken by the Government in this regard;

(d) whether any proposal has been received from various States for the development of Inland Waterways in these States including National Waterway No. 5 in Odisha; and

(e) if so, the details thereof along with action taken thereon and the projected cost for the purpose?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF SHIPPING (SHRI KRISHANPAL GURJAR)

(a) Development and regulation of only those waterways which are declared as National Waterways come under the purview of Union Government. The responsibility of development of other waterways rests with the respective State Government. The following waterways have been declared as National Waterways (NWs):-

(i) Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system (Allahabad-Haldia-1620 km) in the State of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal as NW-1, declared in 1986.

(ii) River Brahmaputra (Dhubri-Sadiya-891 km) in the state of Assam as NW-2 declared in 1988.

(iii) West Coast Canal (Kottapuram-Kollam) along with Udyogmandal and Champakara Canals-205 km) in the State of Kerala as NW-3 declared in 1993.

(iv) Kakinada-Puducherry canal along with Godavari and Krishna rivers (1078 km) in the State of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Union Territory of Puducherry as NW-4 declared in 2008.

(v) East Coast Canal integrated with Brahmani river and Mahanadi delta rivers (588 km) in the State of West Bengal and Odisha as NW-5 declared in 2008.

(b)&(c): National Waterway-3 was declared w.e.f. February-1993. As per the detailed project report prepared by M/s RITES, capital dredging to the tune of 40.33 lakh cu.m has to be carried out over a length of about 87 km to develop a navigational channel with 32 m bottom width in narrow stretches and 38 m bottom width in wider stretches with 2.2 m depth. As on date about 5.16 lakhs cu.m of dredging is to be carried out over a length of about 7.95 km for which the work is in progress. The progress of work has been severely hampered due to non provision of suitable dumping sites for the dredged spoil by the State Authorities, resistance by local people for dredging and their agitation in the process of dumping the dredged materials.

(d)&(e): No proposal has been received for declaring a waterway as a National Waterway from any of the State Government. East Coast Canal integrated with Brahmani river and Mahanadi delta rivers (588 km) was declared as National Waterway-5 in November-2008. Subsequent to the declaration of the waterway as National Waterway-5, detailed project report for its development for shipping and navigation was prepared. The Planning Commission advised to explore the possibility of developing commercially viable stretches of this waterway under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. Accordingly, after conducting meeting with the stakeholders, Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) explored the possibility of developing the identified commercially viable stretches under public private partnership mode. However, this has not been found feasible. Hence, efforts is being made to develop the waterway in a phased manner with budgetary support. An MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Government of Odisha, Paradip Port and Dhamra Port Company Ltd. was signed by IWAI on 30th June, 2014 for developing the commercially viable stretch of 332 km in phases.