7 SEPTEMBER 2014: NW1 to B ready in 5Years!

Ø  Preliminary work has begun to develop a 1,620 km waterway on the Ganga between Haldia in West Bengal and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, touching important cities like Kolkata and Varanasi. The World Bank is expected to support the project with an initial assistance of $50 million. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), which is implementing the project, has estimated the cost at Rs. 4,200 crore. The project, labelled as National Waterway-1, will pass through four States, touching eight major cities and their industrial hinterlands. A three-member project management unit, which will initiate institutional arrangements for preparation and pre-appraisal, has been set up. The IWAI has plans to implement five more such waterways. Pravir Pandey, member finance of IWAI, will be the project director. Efforts are now on to engage the services of domain executives for capacity building of the project including business development. Official sources said the development of this waterway is expected to offer a supplementary mode of transport at a time when railways and roadways are already saturated. Thermal power plants, cement, fertilizer and edible oil companies and the public sector Food Corporation of India are keen on the development of this mode. The project may take at least five years to complete from its zero date. It would involve improvement of the navigability of the stretch, especially in the upper reaches (where large Himalayan rivers like Ganga receive discharge from the tributaries) and conservancy. The project will require construction of permanent river training works, barrages, navigational locks, terminals for cargo handling and night navigational facilities.

Ø   Union Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has written to the Chief Justices of the High Courts to monitor cases against MPs and MLAs against whom charges have been framed for the offences specified in Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Pointing to a recent direction of the Supreme Court that trials of MPs and MLAs should be concluded speedily and in no case later than one year from the date of framing of charges, Mr. Prasad urged the Chief Justices to evolve a suitable mechanism to monitor such cases so that the directions of the Supreme Court were complied with by the trial courts in letter and spirit.