Guwahati: The Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Ayush, Sarbananda Sonowal, received the first over-dimensional cargo (ODC) transported via waterways at Numaligarh Refinery jetty on June 16.
This is the first consignment transported by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), the nodal agency of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, for the capacity expansion of Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) from 3 MMT to 9 MMT.
The MoU to transport a total of 24 ODC as well as Over-Weight Cargo (OWC) for NRL was signed between IWAI and NRL last year.
Speaking on the occasion, Sonowal said, “Today, Assam has witnessed a memorable event when an ODC was transported from Kolkata to Numaligarh using inland waterways.”
With the successful arrival of the first ODC at NRL, traversing a huge distance via waterways, “the role of Inland Waterways to empower the growth of Assam as well as that of Northeast India is imminent and I believe it is going to play a pivotal role in the rapid transformation of our region via an economical, ecological and sustainable mode of transportation”, he added.
The first ODC was transported by an IWAI ship -- MV Marine 66 -- from Kolkata to the NRL jetty via Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Route. The Diesel Hydrotreating (DHT) reactor weighs 485 MT in net while the gross weight was 521 MT.
The ODC left Kolkata on March 18 and reached NRL after travelling for nearly three months via Bangladesh.
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