Agartala, Feb 12 Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal on Wednesday said that northeastern state of Tripura would be connected with Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Paradeep via Bay of Bengal once inland waterways connectivity with Bangladesh commences.
Addressing a press meet at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state headquarters in Agartala, the Central Minister said preparedness for setting up international inland waterways connectivity with Bangladesh has come a long way as his ministry has already built jetties on river Gomati in Tripura and plans to connect beyond Bangladesh once the connectivity routes become operational.
Through the waterway connectivity, India would not be restricted to Bangladesh only, and the northeastern states would be linked with Kolkata, Paradeep, Visakhapatnam etc, the Minister said.
"We want to provide global connectivity to the northeastern region."
The Union Minister said that Tripura is a resource rich state in many sectors and has ability to produce lots of horticultural, agricultural, bamboo based and other goods which have potential for global market and the waterways connectivity would help it leverage its connectivity potential, putting it in front of a huge market internationally.
"Noting that Tripura has come a long way in terms of development in the last decade during the regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led governance," Sonowal said that the state is now third in internet connectivity in the country and has made a space in the global market with its agriculture and horticulture products like jackfruit, pineapple, etc.
He lauded a host of development activities ushered in the northeastern region as well as the rest of the country in the last ten years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government, and said that the policies adopted during the last ten years for social justice, economic growth, development has led India to become the fifth largest economy of the world.
Earlier, in February last year, a new inland waterway terminal building and a permanent jetty was developed at Srimantapur in Tripura's Sepahijala district under the Indo-Bangla inland waterway protocol route between Sonamura in Tripura and Daudkandi of Bangladesh, nearly four years after the protocol route was started in 2020.
The project was launched as part of a slew of other similar projects including freshly upgraded terminals at Karimganj and Badarpur, passenger-cargo terminal at Bogibeel near Dibrugarh in Assam.
Inland waterways' connectivity on a trial basis with Bangladesh was started in Tripura in September 2020, with a floating jetty on river Gomati, which along with several other rivers flows to the neighbouring country from the northeastern state.
The jetty, which connects Sonamura with Daudkandi of Bangladesh, was included in the list of Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) routes signed between the then High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh Riva Ganguly Das and Bangladesh Shipping Secretary Md. Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury at Dhaka in May, 2020.
Authorities said that they were trying to boost the navigability of the rain-fed river including plans for dredging the riverbed of Gomati during the winters to make way for small ships and boats from Sonamura till Ashuganj river port of Bangladesh, which is only 60 km away from Tripura.
Work for construction of the permanent jetty was started last year along with a new terminal. Tripura shares an 856 km long border with Bangladesh, only after West Bengal which has 2,216.7 km international boundary with the neighbouring country.
Agartala via Guwahati is 1,650 km from Kolkata by road, and 2,637 km from New Delhi while the distance between Agartala and Kolkata via Bangladesh is just 620 km.
Waterways distance from (Kolkata's) Haldia port to Chattogram international port is 400 kms and from Chattogram seaport (in southeast Bangladesh) to Akhaura ICP (along Agartala) is 200 km.
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