GUWAHATI: The Assam Inland Water Transport (IWT) department is planning to have a sub-divisional office in Majuli in a bid to smoothly cater to the demand from commuters between Kamalabari and Neematighat in the world’s largest inhabited river island in Upper Assam.
“We have submitted a proposal in this regard to the state government considering the fact that Majuli does not have easy access to infrastructure such as bridges which some of the other places have,” IWT director, BB Dev Choudhury told The Shillong Times on Tuesday.
Majuli is under Dibrugarh division of the IWT department. Apart from Dibrugarh, the department has divisions in Guwahati and Silchar.
As it is, the department is launching four new vessels in the river island by the end of this month to cater to the growing demand for the service.
The additional vessels would take up the number of operational ships under the department to about eight. There are 15 private ferries operating to and fro the river island currently.
“Altogether 15 vessels will be launched across the divisions by the year-end under a Rs 18crore scheme of the state government. Four of them were launched in Barak Valley in November last year, four will start operating in Majuli later this month while the seven remaining vessels will be placed in accordance with the demand from a particular divisions,” Dev Choudhury said.
“Majuli will also have another large vessel along with roll-on roll-off (RoRo) services by August 15, which will facilitate safe and smooth transport of big vehicles between the ghats. The Guwahati division will also have RoRo services during the first half of 2019,” he said.
On Monday, a renovated ferry by the name of “Xudhakontho”, started operating from the Kamalabari to Neematighat.
“This is an old vessel that was renovated with better amenities and greater seating capacity (150). An amount of Rs 30lakh was spent to renovate the ferry which can also accommodate up to six vehicles,” the IWT director said.
The department also has long-term plans for ferry services connecting North Guwahati from new areas such as Nagarbera, Sualkuchi, Palashbari and Kharupetia and Mangaldoi.
“The All India Institute of Medical Sciences is coming up in North Guwahati and by then the load factor would increase substantially. So, we are contemplating better connectivity to these towns for patients to have easy access to the institute when it comes up,” Dev Choudhury said.
“Besides to ease traffic congestion on roads, we are also planning to start services to ferry the vegetable trucks from Kharupetia-Mangaldoi in Darrang district that are now coming to markets in Guwahati every day,” he added.