The 1,620-km long waterway being developed on river Ganga between Haldia to Allahabad brings a better opportunity for India in creating more jobs for people, a World Bank official said today.
It will provide better, timely and cost effective goods transportation along with promoting tourism through river cruises, said Jose Luis Irigoyen, Director for the Transport, Water, Information and Communications Technologies, and Infrastructure Finance Department in the Sustainable Development Network (SDN) of the World Bank.
Irigoyen held a meeting here with officials of Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), which is implementing the project, on the preparations of the project and also visited the river site and proposed cargo, terminal site in the city.
The World Bank is keen to provide financial and technical support to the government of India for this waterways project but it will first assess all the economic, social and environmental aspects before giving its final approval for sanctioning of funds, he said.
"We will look at the environmental aspects that what could be the adverse effects from implementation of this project and what all solutions could come out so that the project must be socially and environmentally viable along with economic," he said while replying to a query on environmental impacts of the project.
IWAI member (finance) and project director Pravir Pandey said that three International consultants will be engaged to study the project on aspects of engineering, social and environmental along with market and business.
They will sumbit their study report within a period of 8 months after which work on ground level would begin.
"In the first phase, a letter from the World Bank for providing us a loan assistance of Rs 300 crore has been received by IWAI and it will be spent on the study of the project and other matters concerning the project," Pandey said.
Pandey had earlier this month told PTI that the investment details of the project are yet to be clarified.
"The current Rs 4,700 crore project cost is just an estimate for developing the 1,620 km NW-1 stretch from Haldia to Allahabad. Investment details will get greater clarity after related reports come which are expected in the next six months," Pandey had said.
