The Inland waterways projects will soon be offered via tender for operation and maintenance to the private sector on a long-term basis. This is similar to the road monetisation contracts.
The idea is to give the project on tender for 30 years after being built by the Central government. The project will be given for building warehouses and logistics facilities, etc.
The first operate-maintain-transfer (OMT) contract will be the Varanasi multi-modal project on National Waterway (NW)-1.
The request for qualification or preliminary bids for the contract will be finalised within a month. The private company that aims to bid for such contracts should have executed similar contracts worth at least Rs 2.5 billion in the past five years.
The government will acquire land required for warehousing and logistics facilities. It will also build trunk or primary infrastructure for multi-modal projects. The remaining work has to be done by a private entity.
These contracts are part of the broader Jal Marg Vikas Project approved by the Union Cabinet in January 2018. The scheme entails capacity augmentation for navigation on NW-1 at an estimated Rs 53.7 billion, with technical assistance and investment support from the World Bank. The project is expected to be completed by March 2023.