Farakka barrage
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Infrastructure
Subhro Niyogi, February 12, 2021: The Times of India
Hilsa migration’s equivalent of the Berlin Wall — a faulty navigation lock on the Farakka barrage that straddles Bengal’s Murshidabad and Malda districts — is falling after 43 years of denying fish lovers their shimmering silvery catch from Bangladesh.
Once found in abundance in Ganga till as far upstream as Prayagraj and Kanpur, the progress of the famous “Padmar ilish” beyond Farakka — where the Ganga splits into the Hooghly and the Padma — had been halted by the construction of the navigation lock in 1978. This unintentional wrong committed against the piscine palate will, however, be set right later this year, thanks to the planned revitalisation of a channel for passenger and goods vessels to Prayagraj via Kolkata, Farakka, Patna and Varanasi.
The new lock, which is basically a structure meant to create a safe navigational passage between water pools at different levels, promises to be a boon not only for vessels but also those bemoaning the dearth of high-quality hilsa on this side of the riverine border.
“It takes about two hours or more for a vessel to pass upstream or downstream from Farakka through the existing lock. The new lock will reduce the passage time to 38 minutes. If another vessel moves in the reverse direction, the travel time will be only 23 minutes,” said an official of L&T Geostructure, which is executing the project at a cost of Rs 359 crore. “What’s more, fish lovers in Bengal and beyond till Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh can look forward to enjoying fresh hilsa as the new lock will help the fish migrating from the Padma all the way upstream in the waters of the Ganga.” A marine fish found in the Bay of Bengal as well as the Arabian Sea, the hilsa swims upstream to breed in sweet river water.
