The central government is still interested in taking up the Tajpur port project forward, informed the Union minister of state for ports, shipping and waterways Shantanu Thakur today.

The minister was speaking during a media meet after the inaugural meeting of the Inland Waterways Development Council (IWDC) held in Kolkata today. The crucial meeting on board the vessel MV Ganga Queen at the Kolkata Dock complex was chaired by the Union minister of ports, shipping and waterways and AYUSH, Sarbananda Sonowal. Ministers of state for ports, shipping and waterways Shripad Naik and Shantanu Thakur along with senior officials of over 20 states and Union Territories were also present at the meeting.

Mr Sonowal launched ‘Harit Nauka’ guidelines and ‘River Cruise Tourism Roadmap, 2047’. According to Mr Sonowal the council has decided to invest more than Rs 45,000 crore in river cruise tourism in near future. “Presently, the frequency of passengers in river cruises is two lakh tourists. We are aiming to improve it up to 15 lakh,” said Mr Sonowal. “For transition into green transport, we are aiming to make an investment of Rs 15,000 crore. In the next 10 years’ time, we are going to make 1,000 vessels and ferries as green transport,” he added.

Responding to a question on the Tajpur Port for which the central government had expressed willingness of participation initially, Mr Thakur said, “It is absolutely true that the central government was interested but we did not have any kind of message from the state government so we stopped and gave the opportunity to them to take the initiative.”

Elaborating on the subject, he added, “Our government had given a proposal to the state government that the new port at Tajpur be given to us so that we could develop it and generate good revenue. But the state government has not yet given any message on the subject,” claimed the minister. Notably, during the inaugural meeting of the IWDC, the state government is said to have sought help from the ministry in solving issues of increasing siltation. As informed by Mr Sanjay Bandopadhyay, chairman of Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), there are many rivers in the state where siltation is increasing and water level decreasing.

“We have been requested to help in finding ways of increasing the water level for improving inland water transport. Also, more than 20 community jetties are being set up in Bengal that would be handed over to the state for ferry services,”Bandopadhyay said. Meanwhile, the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port is said to have aimed at Rs 550 crore net profit in the current fiscal.