Kendrapara: Although dredging work for the proposed National Waterway-5 was stopped in July due to massive public protests, the royalty on the sand dredged amounting to around Rs 3.5 crore has not been collected by the district administration.
Meanwhile, the people are asking that if the royalty for the dredged sand has not been collected where is the 11 lakh cubic metres of sand that was recovered from the Badamanatira to Padanipal stretch of river Kani for construction of National Waterways-5?
The mafia pocketed crores of rupees by transporting the sand to other districts, the locals alleged, demanding a probe by the Collector.
Sources said dredging for National Waterway-5 was done in three phases from Jajpur’s Erada to Kendrapara’s Padanipala in river Brahmani and its tributary Kani covering 36 km.
The National Inland Waterway Authority Ltd (NIWA) had entrusted the job of constructing the National Waterway-5 to the Central Inland Water Transport Corporation (CIWTC), and the Inland Waterways Consortium of Orissa started dredging.
In the first phase, dredging was done in an 11 km stretch from Erada to Angaispur and in the second phase it was done in a 14 km segment from Angaispur to Badamanatira. In the third phase, 11 km of Kani was dredged from Badamanatira to Padanipal.
Locals say that although 11 lakh cubic metres of sand was mined from the riverbed, the district administration failed to collect royalty for it.
As per rules, in order to mine sand, one has to deposit a sum of Rs 35 as royalty for every cubic metre mined.
The matter came out after Rajya Sabha MP Pratap Keshari Deb asked the district administration about this while attending a Disha meeting in the district recently.
ZP member Ganesh Chandra Samal said the mafia duped the administration with the help of corrupt officials, and the sand was transported to Jajpur, Bhadrak and Balasore districts.
As there is no clearance for constructing the National Waterway-5 from the Union Ministry of Environment, the project’s Detailed Project Report (DPR) has not been approved.
Dredging was done to provide 2-metre depth and 50 metre width in the non-tidal zone of the waterway.
Collector Dasarathi Satapathy said the matter has come to his notice and he would order a probe.
The NIWA had proposed to make the National Waterway-5 operational by constructing a 623 km-long waterway in the state in 2008 to cut down transport expenses.
In the first phase, the waterway was planned to be made operational between Jokadia near the Kalinga Nagar industrial hub and Dhamra and Paradip ports. The length between these places is nearly 201 km. The Centre had then planned an outlay of Rs 4,209 crore for the project.
A joint venture – Inland Water Consortium of Orissa Limited – was formed with the Odisha Government, Paradip Port Trust and Dhamra Port Company Limited as partners for the construction of a permanent terminal near Kalinga Nagar.
The NIWA was requested to provide technical support for the preparation of a request for proposal for construction of the terminal.
In January 2017, the NIWA started a trial run of cargo vessel MV Lal Bahadur Sashtri from Dhamra in Bhadrak district to Rajnagar in Kendrapara district to gauge the river’s depth.
The authorities had plans to make the waterway operational by 2020 and trials were scheduled by year-end.
Once operational, the waterway will help the industries of Kalinga Nagar and Vyasa Nagar and the mines in Talcher and Daitary to transport goods using the state’s two major ports, official sources said.
NIWA had signed an MoU with the state government, Paradip Port Trust and Dhamra Port Company Limited June 30, 2014, to execute the first phase of the waterway project.
PNN
