Water transport with Bangladesh comes to a standstill

* Public demands probe into river-dredging operations

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

SILCHAR: The much-hyped resumption process to transport commercial goods through waterways with Bangladesh has come to a standstill despite the dredging of the Barak and the Kushiara rivers just after the 'Namami Barak' in 2016. The Indo-Bangladesh export and import agencies were looking forward to this safe and also affordable means of transport. But now, they are a worried lot. Recently as reported in The Sentinel, a mini ship loaded with cement from Bangladesh anchored at the Karimganj port, much to the delight of business men and the common people.

On the other hand, of the five cargo vessels from Bangladesh which sailed to Karimganj for transportation of lime stones from here, only two could sail back with only 125 tonnes whereas their load capacity is 500 tonnes each. A well-known representative of an export and import agency admitted that there has been nothing like dredging in the downward flow of the Barak and the Kushiara rivers after Badarpur. During the 'Namami Barak' festival, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had promised dredging all along the Barak-Kushiara waterway.

According to knowledgeable circles, dredging was completed from Silchar to Badarpur. Significantly, during the British regime and in the post-Independence period till the 1950's, all-season navigational facilities with Bangladesh were in operation till the upper reaches of Lakhipur where a flourishing port met the requirements of the parties from Manipur and Tripura, besides the valley. The All India general secretary of BJP, Ram Madhav, during his last visit to Karimganj, said before leading citizens that he would urge the Union Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari to declare the 'Karimganj Steamer Ghat' as a port. However, nothing concrete has emerged till date. Everything is in the limbo.

After dredging, it was thought import and export transport through those waterways would be an all –season one. But, cargo vessels from Bangladesh have failed to sail through; and this has raised a lot of questions about the role of the 'Inland Waterways Department' entrusted with the responsibility of the multi-crore project of dredging. And with that, the question of proper utilization of undisclosed fund for the project has also cropped up. Demand is now being raised from public platforms for a high-level probe into the dredging operations.

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