Devotees will be able to converge on the banks of Sangam in Allahabad for 2019 Ardh Kumbh using waterways of the Ganga.
The Uttar Pradesh government and the Centre will sign an agreement for the service.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday announced the launch of waterways service from Hooghly to Prayag (Allahabad) before Ardh Kumbh.
“The service will be from Hooghly to Prayag,” he said.
The 1,620-km waterways navigation from Haldia in West Bengal to Allahabad via Varanasi is the pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The first jetty of Uttar Pradesh is under construction at Ramnagar, Varanasi, to facilitate commercial activity on 1,620-km waterway from Haldia to Varanasi.
{{/usCountry}}The first jetty of Uttar Pradesh is under construction at Ramnagar, Varanasi, to facilitate commercial activity on 1,620-km waterway from Haldia to Varanasi.
{{/usCountry}}The jetty is coming up on six hectares of land in Ralhupur village in Ramnagar on the banks of the Ganga.
“The World Bank has already released the initial amount of Rs 300 crore to the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), a central government body,” said a state government official.
The World Bank would finance 50% of the total estimated cost of the project (Rs 4,200 crore) and would also provide technical assistance in the execution of the project. IWAI will utilise the amount for preparing project report.
Through global tenders, IWAI has appointed international consultants for preparing three different project reports for Haldia-Varanasi project.
As the World Bank is also funding dedicated freight corridor project of the Indian Railways, its officials are now trying to develop the Haldia-Varanasi waterways project as multi-model hub.
Both the projects will be integrated so that they could be made compatible.
The integration of rail, road and waterways on the 1620 km Haldia-Prayag via Varanasi waterways project to promote commercial activity on national waterways-I (Haldia-Varanasi) is on priority list of the central government.