The following article is in response to Ms Rashme Sehgal’s article in The Wire dated March 22, 2018, titled ‘Why is Narendra Modi Allowing Nitin Gadkari to destroy the Ganga’.
This is an effort to put in perspective why the Rs-5,369-crore ‘Jal Marg Vikas Project’ (JMVP) on the National Waterway (NW) 1 – from Varanasi to Haldia – is a wholly inclusive, economic and environment-friendly game changer intervention on the Ganga. Along with giving a fillip to trade and commerce, the JMVP will help rejuvenate the river and not ‘ruin’ it.
Apropos the author’s claim that work on the JMVP has started without any clearance from the environment ministry: Vide an office memorandum dated December 21, 2017, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has confirmed that maintenance dredging for the navigation channel in inland waterways, to maintain an adequate depth for safe navigation and as required by law, does not require an environmental clearance. The construction of multi-modal terminals, jetties, navigational aids, etc. do not require environmental clearance either.
Nonetheless, a detailed environmental assessment has been undertaken for each proposed component of the JMVP as part of the environmental and social safeguards policy of the World Bank (which is providing financial and technical assistance to the project). The draft environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports were disclosed on the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) website in May 2016. (These reports include the cumulative impact assessment, the consolidated environment assessment and the executive summary).
Based on the comments from stakeholders, the EIA reports were revised in September 2016 and have been available on the IWAI website since December that year.
Only after putting in place an Environment Management Plan (EMP) was the IWAI able to earn a wildlife clearance for navigation through the Kashi Turtle Sanctuary, Varanasi, as mandated by the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972. The clearance was obtained from the National Board for Wildlife on June 6, 2017.
Likewise, the coastal regulation zone clearance for a multi-modal terminal at Haldia was received from the MoEFCC on November 6, 2017, according to the CRZ Notification, 2011, under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. The National Ganga River Basin Authority gave its support for a new navigational lock at Farakka on February 28, 2016. The Indian Coast Guard, Haldia, endorsed the oil spill disaster contingency plan for the terminal on December 22, 2016 (prepared according to the guidelines of the National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan, 2015, a.k.a. NOS-DCP).
Opportunities for environmental enhancement were also incorporated in the project design. This included supporting the introduction of ‘cleaner’ vessels following international standards for discharge of ballast, waste water and use of cleaner, more efficient fuel; building energy-efficient terminals and “zero-discharge” infrastructure; reducing air pollution in major cities by careful citing of multi-modal terminals and so reducing potential traffic congestion; and conservation of protected aquatic areas.
That “part of the NW-1 dredging is being undertaken by the Dredging Corporation of India while the rest of it will be done by private corporations”, as Ms Sehgal has written, is not true. The Dredging Corporation of India has not been awarded any contract for maintenance dredging on NW-1 – nor for any of the other national waterways.
Additionally, Cabinet approval for the JMVP was received on January 3, 2018. Subsequently, plans for the JMVP were firmed up and then the loan agreement with the World Bank signed on February 2, 2018. According to the final list of project interventions, no multi-modal terminal is going to be constructed in “Bur in Bihar” nor “in Sultanganj in Jharkhand”, as Ms Sehgal has written.
Trial runs and dredging
On the question of trial runs: The NW-1 project is being implemented right now. Trial runs are performed to assess whether a project is being developed properly. After this, 10 more trial movements are to be carried out on NW-1 in association with Hamburg Port Consulting. The trial run of Maruti cars flagged off on August 12, 2016, elicited a great response from automobile manufacturers in the country, who have shown interest in transporting their vehicles through waterways as they think it will be more cost-effective and environmentally friendly.
Further, contrary to the claims in Ms Sehgal’s article, dredging operations are yet to be initiated. The IWAI is developing standardised vessels with shallow draft and high carrying capacity (up to 2,000 tonnes). These vessels will need a depth of 2.2-3 m in water and a channel width of 45 metres. So the physical interventions have been kept to a minimum. The construction of barrages, diversion structures and groins have been avoided altogether.
The smaller interventions, such as vessel berthing platforms at the terminals, have been designed such that they don’t alter the local hydrodynamics. According to the dredging management plan for the JMVP, the dredged material will not be deposited outside the river. The maintenance dredging will be undertaken along with other innovative methods, such bandalling and river training, to make it less intrusive.
The IWAI also drew up detailed scientific hydrographic surveys, followed by mathematical modelling, to identify and map shoal formations. These shoal formations will be de-silted.
Fisherfolk
The communications team of the IWAI has been engaging with communities along the NW-1. The authority is also towards smaller interventions like making floating jetties and providing modern licensed boats for fishing and ferrying of passengers. A special study, carried out by an independent agency picked through open bidding, found how localised communities were looking forward to such IWAI interventions to help them take their produce to urban markets.
Additionally, dredging is not being carried out in the entire stretch of the Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary. The IWAI had commissioned a consultancy to carry out the study on the effect of navigational activities on dolphins in the NW-1 in December 2017. The study is to be completed in eight months.
The IWAI would also like it known that, contrary to what Ms Sehgal says, the body had commissioned a study titled ‘Impact assessment of coal transportation through barges along the NW-1 (Sagar to Farakka) along the river Ganga’ to the ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CIFRI), Barrackpore.
The study’s results revealed no significant changes in water quality parameters in the river due to the current movement of barges – except an increase in turbidity up to 5% in the shallow channel and near the bank areas immediately after barge movement. In the deeper channel, no variation in turbidity was recorded. IWAI has also time and again clarified that no barrages are being made on NW-1. The bed of the river is not being disturbed; it is incorrect to claim otherwise.
Next, Ms Sehgal has overlooked the fact that, after the JMVP is implemented, two-way movement along the waterway will become possible, further reducing the cost of transportation.
Environmental advantages:
- The IWT is an environment-friendly mode of transport, more so compared to other land-based modes. The following are the major advantages of IWT over the surface modes of transport
- It doesn’t consume water and has minimal resource depletion
- It will reduce the pressure on railways and national highways, relieve congestion, have low noise, and reduce emissions from vehicles and railway engines on non-electrified routes
- Due to minimum requirement of land acquisition, the impact on ecology and diversity will be insignificant; the livelihood of people will also not be affected
The IWAI has also installed the highest health and safety standards for operation of terminal facilities, navigation operations and advanced river information systems – all of which will work together like an air traffic control unit might.
The Ganga river no longer meanders; it does not have pools and shallow areas, and the river’s biodiversity has been badly affected for these reasons. The JMVP, from Varanasi to Haldia, will create an alternative, cost effective mode of transport and help effectively mitigate floods and work towards river conservancy.
Navigation on the Ganga will not obstruct the river’s flow but instead provide for natural scouring without disturbing its bed.
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Rashme Sehgal, author of the first article, replies:
Work on this project started in 2015 without having received environment clearance from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC). In its letter to IWAI dated June 19 2017, the ministry had stated clearly and unambiguously that the waterways would need to seek clearance both for dredging and for the terminal at Ramnagar (Varanasi).
And it is because there was no environmental clearance (EC) that Bharat Jhunjhunwala had filed a petition before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) two years ago, asking the tribunal to stop this work till such time as they received an EC. But as Junjhunwala said, “The NGT has not given a decision on this matter as they have not found it convenient to put a stop to this work.”
“It now appears that the MoEFCC has been “persuaded” to reconsider its earlier position. Mr Pandey points out that a “detailed” EIA has been undertaken, but this is obviously because the World Bank is funding the project. It must be emphasised that an office memorandum dated December 21, 2017, from the MoEFCC does not comprise an EC. The contents of this memorandum should be placed in the public domain.
The key question is: What is the point of an EIA outside the formal and legally binding EC process? In the standardised process, formal hearings are mandatory. The EIA by the MoEFCC’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) and the EC given have legally binding conditions. Most of this would be missing in the process of EIA being undertaken right now. Incidentally, both Goa and Odisha have sought ECs for their waterways.
The reference to the wildlife clearance is separate from the EC. This is a legally binding clearance that they have not been able to evade. One of the conditions for this clearance is that the number of ships travelling in the waterway per day will have to be significantly reduced. However, this implies that the number of ships would to be less, in which case the question arises: is the waterway viable? It is precisely such legally binding conditions that would have come into play if a formal EC had been obtained.
Dredging is taking place across Haldia, Kolkata and on the waterway. What I had said was that the Dredging Corporation of India is one of the PSUs involved. The IWAI also has its dredgers; they are doing part of the dredging and the rest is private. This is the general picture. Information obtained through an RTI by Jhunjhunwala shows that dredging has been going on in the Ganga waterway, as is construction work at the Varanasi terminal, confirmed by several eyewitnesses and government releases.
Mr Pandey’s rebuttal is full of contradictions. He says it is wrong to write that the Ganga will be dredged – and goes on to describe how “shoal formations” have been identified and that these will be de-silted (i.e. dredged). Are these shoal formations outside the Ganga river?
The claim that the river bed will not be disturbed due to dredging is facetious. The river bed is the bottom of the river. Silt is deposited in the river and this is as good as a new river bed.
Regarding the issue of taking local communities into confidence: my reference was to the Mallaah community in and around Varanasi, with whom I had interacted in December 2017. At the time, members of the community told me that they had not been contacted. Perhaps the social and communication team of the IWAI has engaged with people in other parts of the Ganga’s 1,600-km stretch.
Next: Interventions like creating jetties, ports, etc. will see large quantities of cement and fly ash be deposited along the banks and in the river.
Mr Pandey goes on to state that dredging will not take place along the entire Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin sanctuary. However, the dolphins do not confine themselves to the sanctuary. The river is the mammal’s natural habitat and any dredging is going to affect other parts of its habitat. If fact, dredging in other parts may push the dolphins to move into the sanctuary, thereby constraining their habitat.
Mr Pandey has also not denied the main point of the NTPC study undertaken at the behest of the MoEFCC, to see if the fish haul had been reduced due to barge movement. Such an outcome is to be expected according to the study conducted by the Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute.
The other greater danger is that the Ganga has large amounts of sewage and industrial pollutants that have settled on the river bed. Dredging will loosen them; they may then be transported along the river and settle down in other places.
Regarding the construction of barrages on the Ganga: the author of the suggestion was none other than Nitin Gadkari. Gadkari had announced the construction of barrages on the Ganga waterway. If the IWAI is indeed not building barrages (thanks to the opposition from Bihar), this is a positive step. However, in the absence of a project report, the precise components of this project will remain unknown.
The study on the cost comparison between the railways, roads and the IWAI has shown that road transport enjoys an edge over the others. Regarding Mr Pandey’s assertion that the cost will fall if more cargo is carried on one vessel is not correct. To carry more cargo, more fuel will be needed.
The idea to have a disaster management plan in place is good but we cannot forget that in India, we have hundreds of plans and yet remain one of the most disaster-prone nations in the world. The transport of of toxic and hazardous waste through inland waterways is a big risk that the plan is not going to be able to address. The last few years have seen innumerable oil spills along our coast lines. The most recent major spill occurred on January 28, 2017, when two vessels collided off Chennai’s coast. The oil spilled into the sea, leaving thousands of turtles, fish and prawns coated in grease, left to be cleaned by workers using buckets. When oil and any other toxic substances spill into the Ganga, the source of drinking water for millions of Indians will jeopardised.
The contingency plans do not take away the problem of oil leaks. They propose using liquefied natural gas (LNG) for fuel so diesel leaks are avoided, but this misses the point. E.g., lubricants could leak as well. Mr Pandey gives us assurances, but they will carry more weight only when part of a legally binding commitment under an EC.
Mr Pandey writes that the Ganga no longer meanders, and no longer has pools and shallow areas, as a result of which its biodiversity has been adversely impacted.
On the other hand, according to Rajendra Singh, India’s ‘waterman’, “Our rivers are in an [ICU]” because they are so contaminated. River-banks and floodplains have been claimed for construction, thereby reducing their biodiversity and their ability to do buffer flooding. Even worse, many of them have become dead zones, with very low oxygen levels to support most aquatic life. The scope of interventions has been so great that the latest Central Pollution Control Board data for 2017 found the Ganga’s water unsafe even for bathing.
Mr Pandey ends his rebuttal claiming the development of NW 1 would result in an “environmentally friendly, fuel efficient and cost effective alternate mode of transportation especially for bulk goods and hazardous goods”. For a country with deficient freshwater supply, the Ganga is an important source of drinking water and irrigation. Hazardous goods should not be carried on it.