The central government is expected to table a bill in the winter session of the Parliament to convert Tizu and Zungki river routes along with 16 other waterways of North East into National Waterways in a bid to boost waterways traffic. This was disclosed by Member (Technical) Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) RP Khare at the North East Connectivity Summit held in Shillong on November 17.
Tizu River forms an important drainage system in the eastern part of Nagaland. It runs through a northeast direction flows through Zunheboto, Phek district and empties itself in the Chindwin River of Myanmar. The Zunki River which is the biggest tributary of Tizu, starts from the northeastern part of Changdong forest in the south of Teku and flows in southernly direction towards Noklak, Shamator and Kiphire and finally joins Tizu below Kiphire. It is believed that border trade in Nagaland will be a boost once the two river routes are declared as national waterways.
Khare said this is inclusive of the 101 additional inland waterways to be declared national waterways for navigation in the country. The Centre has approved the proposal to enact legislation to declare all these water bodies as national waterways following recommendation of Parliamentary Standing Committee which has submitted its report on August 12. The feasibility report and DPR studies are in progress, he also said.
Altogether 18 river routes from four other NE states will also be declared as national waterways. Of them, 11 are in Assam (Aai, Barak, Beki, Dehing, Dhansiri (Chathe), Dikhu, Doyang, Gangadhar, Kopili, Puthimari and Subansiri), four from Meghalaya (Jinjiram, Kynshi, Simsang, Umngot (Dawki), one from Arunachal Pradesh (Lohit) and Mizoram Tlawng (Dhaleshwari), he informed.
Northeast has one national waterway – the Brahmaputra (National Waterway 2) – which was declared one in 1988 and has carried 2,475,349 metric tonnes of cargo in 2013-14. The proposed law would enable the Centre to develop the waterways for navigation. While the usage of water, land ownership, sand and minerals would continue to be under the state government, the development and regulation would be with the central government. The plan is to develop inland waterway transport as well as taking away sizeable road traffic. The cost per km of waterways transportation is cheaper than that of road and railways. Till date five waterways have been declared national waterways. However, officials of a IWT Department in Assam informed that though the intent looks good, no work has been done to find out what kind of trade can take place on these waterways. “A thorough study needs to be done as what kind of cargo can go, if any. Otherwise, it will be a futile exercise,” they maintained.
They said the Barak river in Assam has still not been declared a national waterway despite all formalities and is still awaiting the approval of Parliament. Bamboo, bamboo products, cement, building material, fertiliser, foodgrain, milk and other essential commodities have been moved on the national waterway.
The DoNER ministry had said in a report on status of National Waterway last year that the IWAI has two to three cargo vessels for demonstrative voyages only. The IWT, Assam also has some cargo vessels but are now virtually “defunct. It said private operators consider investment in vessels on National Waterway is too risky, because of uncertainties surrounding the Indo-Bangladesh Trade and Transit Protocol.
As multi-modal transport planning is yet to take off in the Northeast, the full potential of inland water transport has not been leveraged,” it said.
It added that as inland water transport has not received due importance in policy and investments so far, operators with the required fleet size of vessels have not emerged either in the private or in public sectors.
“This is the major bottleneck in the promotion of inland water transport. The Brahmaputra and Barak rivers have not been fully commercially exploited for transportation purposes,” it added.