Consortium proposal for financing 101 inland waterways mooted: Amitabh Verma

NEW DELHI: A consortium of leading financial institutions both domestic and overseas is being conceived to part finance around 101 inland waterways to facilitate faster and economic cargo movement across India, Chairman of Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) Amitabh Verma said today.

"The IWAI has appointed a full-time consultant, who happens to be a former head of a leading Indian banking institution and also engaged services of a senior consultant of International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank that are currently working out a proposal for creation of such a consortium amidst their other assigned functions," Verma said, according to a release issued by PHD Chamber of Commerce.

"Hopefully, the proposed consortium would evolve into an established entity in near future as 101 identified inland waterways alone require an investment of Rs 35,000 crore in next couple of years," he added.

Verma pointed out that the Constitution of IWAI allowed it to create such an entity and also raise funds through market borrowings and tapping multilateral agencies to fund the inland waterways.

"The ... arrangements through multilateral agencies to fund the identified inland waterways would happen in next two years as by Winter Session of the Parliament, the Inland Waterways Bill which has been pending in the Parliament for the last 8 years could be passed.

"Its earlier enactment would facilitate the proposal of IWAI for tapping market borrowings and organizing funds through multilateral agencies," he said.

According to him, feasibility studies for construction of six inland waterways would be completed by October this year and the detailed project report for them will have been accomplish by March 2016.

The Authority is also pushing harder for allocation of vessel and freight subsidies with its administrative ministry and other organs of the government as acquiring vessels require huge investment to operate on the inland waterways.

Ambassador of Belgium to India Jan Luykx said Belgium, a key international player in multimodal transportation, would be happy to form alliances with its Indian counterparts to enable it put in effective multimodal transportation in India.