India and Bangladesh to connect through new waterways, says minister Mansukh Mandaviya

Agartala: Bangladesh and India have already signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to connect the Northeast and West Bengal with Bangladesh through new waterways, Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya has said. “The new waterways would enable transportation of people and goods by ships. The new waterways would be set up by using major rivers of Bangladesh, West Bengal and Brahmaputra in Assam. [caption id=“attachment_125077” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “Dredging in the rivers would be required and the concerned countries would conduct the dredging works in the rivers in their countries,” the Union minister of state for road transport, highways and shipping told reporters on Saturday night. The new project would be operational in 2017 and boost the trade and passenger movement between the countries, he said. The two countries share a 4095 km border of which 1116 km is through river. Bangladesh as lower riparian state receives water from 54 rivers from India. Mandaviya, who is also Union minister of state for chemicals and fertilisers met Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar and Governor Tathagata Roy on Saturday and discussed about implementation of Pradhanmantry Bharatiya Jan Aushadhi Pariyojana with a target of providing quality medicine to the poor people. He said the Narendra Modi government is giving importance to strengthen the “Look East, act East” policy by building more infrastructure and institutions in the region to catch up with the rest of the country. Construction of highways was one of them, he said. Mandaviya said at present there are six national highways having length of 854 km in Tripura and in addition to this four new roads covering 229 km have been approved by the ministry.