Tizu Zunki River to be harnessed for Economic Development of Nagaland, to enable Cargo & Passenger Transport

• The Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways, Shri Sarbananda Sonowal announced major initiatives aimed at enabling the waterways potential of Nagaland during the Stakeholder’s Conference held in Dimapur, Nagaland today.

Highlights:

• Development of Tizu Zunki (National Waterways 101) as both the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) and to work together to study for navigation feasibility.
• To develop the immense tourism potential of Doyang River Lake with community jetties as well as study feasibility of Ro Pax ferries.
• This will boost the tourism potential of the state.
• “Waterways is the most economical, sustainable and efficient mode of transportation.
• Top priority of the inland waterways in the country as the viable alternative to develop an efficient and effective mode of transportation in the country.
• Under the dynamic leadership of PM Modi ji, our government has been working towards enabling our rich resource pool of the country to escalate the growth trajectory of India to become one of the fifth largest economies in the world in less than a decade.
• Northeast has a major role to play as the growth engine of India, as envisioned by PM
• The complex and dynamic mix of waterways of the Northeast provides us an excellent opportunity to build on the nation building momentum. We remain firmly committed and on track to provide impetus for the development of waterways of the region.
• This will examine from the perspective of fairway development, navigational aids, and terminals with minimum infrastructure, skill development and vessel procurement.
• The Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways (MoPSW), via the IWAI, has been working towards empowering and enabling the complex and dynamic waterways of the region. The agency is working on multiple projects in this regard including the prestigious Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project, enabling linkage of multiple NWs like NW 2 and NW 16 with Indo Bangladesh Protocol Route (IBPR), development of fairway on IBPR as well as declaration of Ports of Call among others.
• Tizu river in Nagaland further flows into Chindown river (Third largest Tributary of river Irrawaddy river), also known as Ningthi river in Myanmar, at Htamanthi in Myanmar.
• Chindown River further enters into Irrawaddy River - the largest river of Myanmar. River Irrawaddy further drains into Andaman Sea via Irrawaddy Delta after traveling through river ports like Mandalay Chauk, Prome and & Hinthada providing an alternative opportunity to use waterways for cargo movement from Northeast to the international trade routes.

Prelims Takeaway:

• Rivers of North East
• IWAI