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Dredging is an essential activity to ensure that enough depth is maintained in water bodies for movement of ships. But due to the underwater nature of the activity, contracts are often fraught with instances of dredging companies maintaining lesser draft than required as per bid conditions. To address these issues, the online dredging monitoring system for ports controlled by the central government has been introduced.
Speaking at the event, Shipping Secretary, Sudhansh Pant said the Centre has intervened to generate wealth from dredged material. “It has now been instructed that the dredging contractors will be responsible for selling the extracted material. This will lower the net dredging cost,” he said, adding that in places where the quality of dredged material is good, and can be used for construction activities, an even better value can be unlocked.
The online dredging monitoring system will automatically assess the volume of extracted material from river and sea beds. Sonowal said this system will put an end to arbitrariness in contracts. “There will be total transparency now,” he said.
“Through Sagar Samridhi, all the dredging data will be made available online…whatever dredging has been done and has been committed to will be at one place and monitored real time,” Sonowal said adding that samples of the dredged material will also be sent for testing to ascertain the value of the extracted commodity.
In March this year, the Shipping Ministry issued addendum to the Dredging Guidelines for Major Ports, 2021. According to the revised guidelines, the beneficial use of dredged material has to be adequately explored and accordingly the concept of ‘Waste to Wealth’ in the dredging sector has been highlighted.
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