Guwahati, Sept 7: The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has strengthened the operations and management functions of its Pandu and Dhubri ports in Assam.
Under a new arrangement, the operations and management of the Pandu and Dhubri terminals have been outsourced through open bidding for a period of five years.
IWAI, which is the nodal agency of inland waterways in India under the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways, aims to improve revenue generation through improved and efficient logistics and cargo movement.
The move is also aimed at boosting cargo exports from Assam and the Northeast to Bangladesh and South Asia by the year 2025.
Currently, the cargo exports from the region stand at 0.5 million metric tonnes (MT), which IWAI plans to enhance to 3 million MT in two years.
This new agreement is also likely to generate potential employment to at least 73,000 man days employment per year during the tenure of the agreement.
The operations and management of the Pandu and Dhubri terminals, both under the control of IWAI, through a private operator, are being done to increase the efficiency of the terminals and cargo movement on National Waterway-2 and Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) routes.
Speaking on the PPP (public-private partnership) model, A Selvakumar, regional director, IWAI (Pandu port) said, “Let me clarify that neither Pandu nor Dhubri ports were privatised. We have only engaged a specialist contractor who will be operating and managing the cargo from both the ports. The contractor was selected through due process of law through a competitive national bidding basis.”
“Also, before tendering these terminals for operations and management, a detailed study was also carried out to decide a suitable and most appropriate transaction model. A number of discussions were held with the stakeholders/local operators at Pandu and Dhubri as well as other places. Based on the outcome of the discussions with stakeholders/private operators, the process of giving out the terminal on an operation and management basis was initiated,” Selvakumar said.