Bill to fund waterways from CRF in Monsoon Session: Nitin Gadkari

NEW DELHI: The government will move a Bill in Parliament during the upcoming Monsoon Session to enable allocation of about Rs 2,000 crore from Central Road Fund for developing inland waterways, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has said.

Parliament had last year enacted National Waterways (NWs) Act, 2016, for developing and maintaining the existing five NWs and 106 new NWs across the country.

"We will move the Central Road Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2017 during the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament," the Road Transport and Highways Minister told PTI.

"Once enacted, it will give a big boost to our waterways as cargo transportation through water is a much cheaper and cleaner way of transportation. It will bring down logistics cost that is very high," Gadkari said.

The Cabinet in May had accorded approval to a joint proposal by the shipping ministry and the road transport and highways ministry for amending the Central Road Fund Act, 2000, to allocate 2.5 per cent of the proceeds of CRF for development and maintenance of NWs and a reduction in the share provided for development of National Highways.

CRF is made up of cess on petrol and high speed diesel. The cess at present is Rs 6 per litre.

The Cabinet also directed that while implementing viable National Waterways projects, all such components that can be done on PPP basis, should be explored and government funding may be used only if private investment is not forthcoming.

The fund collected under CRF was Rs 80,800 crore in 2016 -17, Rs 69,540 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 25,122 crore in 2014- 15.

Gadkari said an allocation of 2.5 per cent of CRF proceeds would provide approximately Rs 2,000 crore per annum for the development and maintenance of NWs.

The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has estimated that approximately Rs 25,000 crore would be required for development of identified projects on NWs till 2022-23.