Union min to lay stone for state’s first cargo terminal in Saran today

Patna: Port, shipping and waterways minister Sarbananda Sonowal will lay the foundation stone by remote for the state’s first intermodal inland waterways cargo terminal at Kalughat near Sonepur in Saran district on Saturday. It is on the northern side of the river Ganga, around 25km away from Gaighat in Patna, where Sonowal, along with along with other dignitaries from Bangladesh and India, will also flag off a vessel carrying foodgrains to Pandu (Guwahati) in Assam to mark the international run of the national waterways (NW-1) Ganga in its Bihar stretch.
The cargo terminal is being developed on 13.7 acres of land with an estimated expenditure of around Rs 78 crore. Once completed in the next two years, it will help in the transportation of container cargos, offloaded from ships at Haldia, up to the Kalughat terminal for their further transportation by road to Nepal and cities of north Bihar and West Bengal, like Siliguri. That will reduce the cost of transportation, as it will be less costly than transportation by road and railways from Haldia.