The Government of India, Government of Assam and the World Bank signed a loan agreement of $88 million to help modernize Assam’s passenger ferry sector that runs on its rivers including the mighty Brahmaputra.
A majority of Assam’s more than 350 ferry routes cross the Brahmaputra or serve its islands, providing a crucial means of transport to thousands of commuters in both the urban and rural areas of the Brahmaputra Valley. The Assam Inland Water Transport Project (AIWTP), will help Assam improve the passenger ferry infrastructure and its services and strengthen the capacity of the institutions running the inland water transport. Technically better-designed terminals and energy-efficient vessels (both new and retrofitted) will make the ferry services more sustainable with the least disruption to nature.
“Assam has the largest network of navigable waterways in India. The Government of Assam has taken on the challenge of modernizing the ferries sector which, though vital to the state, remains largely informal,” said Junaid Ahmad, World Bank Country Director, India. “With World Bank support, the government is creating an institutional framework that will mainstream Inland Waterways as a mode of transport that is both attractive and well-suited to a wide cross-section of people living in the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam.”
The project will support the Government of Assam’s efforts to corporatize its own ferry activities.
Inland Water Transport is also a more sustainable mode of transport. It provides low-carbon and low-cost options when compared to the cost of constructing and maintaining flood-resilient roads and bridges across the long stretches of the Brahmaputra river.
The project will also help build modern ferry terminals. In doing so, the project will draw guidance from ‘working with nature’ principles that aim to design new infrastructure or rehabilitate existing infrastructure in a way that works with natural river processes.
Original source: World Bank
Published on 16 January 2019
