Haldia to Varanasi Waterway

This is a dream project of inland waterway authority of india for the transportation from Varanasi to Haldia and vice versa through the Ganges. There is already a great burden on the railways and surface transport and even the cost is high. Thus the Government of India envisaged a plan to start water transport in 3 main routes—Ganga, Brahmaputraand west coast cannels.

After the start of the vessels from Assam to Bangladesh on Brahmaputra river the government emphasized on Haldia to Varanasi Ganges route The first phase of this project from Haldia to Patna was already complete and very soon. Patna to Varanasi is going to be started in the 3rd phase it would be extend from Varanasi to Prayagraj.

The project is named national waterway 1. This project runs through west Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It would have 21 terminals. The first one Haldia Multi model terminal and the last one Prayagraj with 19 other at important cities like Kolkata, Bhagalpur, patna, Buxar, Ghazipur, Varanasi etc. In coming times it would be a great privilege for the tourists doing from Kolkata to Varanasi tour by Waterway.
It would cover a distance of 1620 kms this would be the longest waterway. This route has been used already by the local traders to transport cargo and agriculture produce since ages.

This waterway is going to be boon for the transport sector and would curtail transportation cost, thus give a boost to the economy. The traders would certainly get benefit from it. The first consignment was already delivered in 2006 and that of 300 metric of crude oil.

In 2014 the then union minister of shipping Mr. Nitin Gadkari announced that for this project the government would make barrages every 100 kms on the Ganges and this navigation would be easy between Varanasi and Haldia. The World Bank agreed to provide a fund of initial USD 50 million and the technical support also for this purpose. Though some groups of activist opposed this move of making of barrages on the Ganges. Thus the government is trying for the implementation. The biologist and the environmentalist claim that the dredging activity in the Ganga would cause noise and disturbance to the aquatic animals like the dolphins.. They also think that it would have the self purification capacity of the Ganga river.