Guwahati, March 15: In a landmark achievement for the ports, Union shipping and waterways ministry, the longest vessel ever to sail on the Brahmaputra anchored at Pandu Port on Tuesday after completing cargo movement from Haldia via Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Route (IBPR).
The 90-metre-long and 26-metre-wide vessel, MV Ram Prasad Bismil along with two barges – DB Kalpana Chawla and DB APJ Abdul Kalam — were flagged off from the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port in Haldia by Union minister of ports, shipping and waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal on February 16, 2022.
The significance of the pilot run lays down the path for commencement of barging operations from Kolkata to Guwahati via Indo Bangladesh Protocol Route (IBPR).
The consignment, loaded with 1,793 MT of steel rods from Tata Steel in Jamshedpur – had a requirement of draft of 2.0 metres.
The engineering marvel of this historic consignment remains at maintaining the minimum navigational draft of at least 2.0 metres, especially at critical stretches like Sirajganj-Daikowa stretch of IBPR.
The governments of India and Bangladesh funded the dredging of this stretch – with 80:20 ratio respectively – for seamless navigation.
The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) as well as Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) worked together so that this historic cargo movement can move smoothly.
Union minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, closely followed all developments and personally monitored the dredging work done by IWAI at various areas in this stretch so that the movement between NW1 and NW2 can start on priority basis.
“Under the Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Transformation through Transportation,’ we worked tirelessly to rejuvenate the water transport in the region. This is not only the cheapest and ecologically most adapted mode of transportation, it also allows the long awaited connection for the business of Northeast through the marine network with the rest of the world,” Sonowal said.
“As the pilot run of this longest vessel, plying on the Brahmaputra, anchors a success at Pandu today, we must recognise that this was made possible by the team to chalk out a working route during this season of challenging depth at many stretches,” he said.
It is to be noted that earlier, MV Lal Bahadur Shastri carried a consignment of 200 MT foodgrains for Food Corporation of India (FCI) from Patna to Pandu, successfully completing the pilot movement cargo between Ganga, the National Waterway 1 (NW1), and Brahmaputra, the National Waterway 2 (NW2).
In addition to this, over dimensional cargo (ODC) for Numaligarh Refinery was also transported via IBPR further onto NW2 earlier.