DECLINE OF PORT INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY OF HUGLI RIVER BELT.

DECLINE OF PORT INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY OF HUGLI RIVER BELT

INTRODUCTION The Hooghly River is an approximately 260 kilometers long distributary of the Ganges River in West Bengal, India. It splits from the Ganges as a canal in Murshidabad District at the Farakka Barrage. The town of Hugli- Chinsura, is located on the river, in the Hooghly. The Farakka Barrage is a dam that diverts water of the Ganges. It supplies the Hooghly with adequate water even in the dry season. It parallels the Ganges. The river takes its own course just south of Jahangirpur. The river then flows south past Katwa, Navadwip and Kalna. It flows past Halisahar, Chunchura, Konnagar, and Kamarhati. Then just before entering the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah, it turns to the southwest. At Nurpur it enters an old channel of the Ganges and empty into the Bay of Bengal. Two of its well known tributaries are Damodar and Rupnarayan.

HISTORY The river was an important transportation channel in the early history of Bengal and later it became one of the major colonial trading ports. The river's presence is one of the reasons chosen by the British to settle there at Calcutta. In 1974, the Farakka Barrage began diverting water into the Hooghly during the dry season so as to reduce the silting difficulties at Kolkata's port.

KOLKATA PORT Kolkata Port was set up by the British East India Company after the company received trading rights from the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. It is a riverine port, located around 126 miles from the sea. It is the oldest operating port in India constructed by the British East India Company. The Port has two distinct dock systems - Kolkata Docks at Kolkata and a deep water dock at Haldia Dock Complex, Haldia. In the 19th century Kolkata Port was the premier port in British India. After independence its importance decreased because of factors including the Partition of Bengal, reduction in size of the port hinterland and economic stagnation in eastern India. It has a vast hinterland comprising the entire Eastern India and two landlocked neighboring countries of Nepal and Bhutan. With the turn of the century the volume of throughput has again started increasing steadily.

IMPORTANCE OF KOLKATA PORT The growth of the City of Calcutta is linked to the growth of the Port of Calcutta. The Port of Calcutta had always lagged behind the economic demands that propelled the growth of the city. The hinterland of Calcutta opened up for coal mining. tea plantations. production of jute as a cash crop and railroads. The postal and telegraph services were functioning to facilitate speedy decision making by the merchants. The merchants had come to operate the jute textile industries that were springing up along the bank of the Bhagirathi river. Raw jute came from eastern Bengal in country boats or on flats pulled by steamers and was unloaded at the individual jetties constructed by these mills without the help of the Port of Calcutta. The same was happening with tea from northeast unloaded at the Armenian jetty constructed by the tea exporters. In addition, industrial revolution in England promoted exports of cotton textiles and other manufactures to Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bengal through the Port of Calcutta.

KOLKATA PORT

MANUFACTURING SECTOR IN WEST BENGAL In 1960, West Bengal was one of the 3 richest states in India. And it owed this wealth to the social and physical infrastructure that came with Calcuttas past as the long standing capital of the British Empire which helped it develop a strong manufacturing tradition. In the mid 1960s, when West Bengal started losing its prominence in the industrial scenario of India. The state witnessed two spells of left-dominated coalition government in 1967 and 1969 and experienced labour militancy on a grand scale and after five years of non-leftist government which included the period of emergency during 1975 to 1977 West Bengal, witnessed the return of the leftists in 1977, continuing, uninterrupted, till May, 2011. During the period from 1960s to the 1990s, the state witnessed a steady decline of the manufacturing sector evident from its insignificant contribution to the GSDP. Some resurgence though has been witnessed in this sector since the year 2000. Economic reforms and competition among states to attract investments have led to renewed interest of business groups in investing in West Bengal. The revival in interest is evident from the trend in Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

STRUCTURE OF NATIONAL AND STATE PRODUCTS YearShare of Agriculture (%) Share of Manufacturing (%) Share of Unorganized Sector in Manufacturing (%) WBINDIAWBINDIAWBINDIA 198081 283721154245 199091 283018164538 200001 272413146138 200304 232211146536

THE ECONOMICS OF CONTROL AND THE POLITICS OF ENTITLEMENT This phase is important from a political theory perspective for a couple of reasons, however from a political development perspective, the year 1967 is most important this year experienced an apparent breakdown of the institutional framework within which the various organizations were expected to operate. The state of West Bengal ushered in a new era when a non-Congress ministry dominated by the Left, came to power. From 1967 to the present day, the political history of West Bengal appears to be a story of polarization between the Left and non-Left forces with the non- Left becoming marginalized, while the Left has given up its militant strategies of the 1960s and the 1970s and embraced a policy which could be described as orientated to the Realist Left. West Bengal had the eminent position in the industrial map of India at the time of independence, West Bengal had about 20 per cent of Indian industry at the time of independence with about a 10 per cent share of population. From this position of great eminence, it is well-known now that West Bengals industrial sector declined in importance over a long period of time.

THE ECONOMICS OF CONTROL AND THE POLITICS OF ENTITLEMENT The Types of Industries in West Bengal, 19611975 IndustriesNumber of Industries 196119651967197019721975 Tea 282288265276272265 Cotton 78140164182250241 Jute 888481767374 Chemical 221275272280318334 Iron and Steel 556654 Engineering 166124212586254426032587 Total 213532133374336435213505

TRADE UNION BEHAVIOUR Now turn to the labour issues. How far can the vulnerable workforce be a factor in determining the non-performance of large-scale industry giving way to the unorganized sector? Recent research highlights that the use of contract labour is increasing in organized manufacturing sector. In the context of uncertain market conditions, management find it increasingly easier to adjust their production plans by retaining a small core of permanent workers alongside a large number of contract workers under highly flexible conditions of work and lower wage- cost. Some of the workers of the older firms surveyed maintained that the practice of not filling up of the permanent workers positions in the organized manufacturing units started since the early 1980s. Moreover, frequent declaration of lockouts in different sectors, mainly jute, led to the absolute decline in the organized workforce in the state.

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS IN FACTORIES IN THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL, 19651975 Nature of Industrial Disputes Numbers 196519671969197019711975 Strikes 179N.A 678N.A111 Lockouts 49N.A 128N.A166 Total 228N.A 806N.A277

THE ERA OF ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY The choice of the years of 19771991 somewhat deliberate, being the period right after the imposition of an emergency in India. It may be described as an era of uncertainty for the business community in West Bengal, the apparent reasons being as follows: first, the right to property: as described in the Constitution of India as portrayed in the chapter on Fundamental Rights through the Constitution (forty-fourth) Amendment Act, 1978; an undoubtedly significant change. Second, this constitutional change might have appeared to be more significant in the context of West Bengal as the Left Front became a politically significant factor at the central level. Third, the massive majority which the Left Front secured in the four elections during this period made it politically difficult for any ruling party at the centre to bring any charges relating to the breakdown of the constitutional machinery in the state. Fourth, industry appears in List I of the Seventh Schedule, which is essentially within the jurisdiction of the state, and given the past record of militancy, alongside the ideological commitment of the Left, it should not be considered unusual for investors to shy away.

THE ERA OF ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY The Left showed is dealing with question of uncertainty. An interesting phenomenon of this agrarian reform was that it resulted in expansion of non-agricultural activities and a substantial growth of small scale unorganized sector manufacturing and service activity in rural areas of West Bengal. Left has identified two different approaches to study institutional dynamics in rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism: where the former emphasizes rational strategy on the part of the actors to deal with the institutional structure, the latter highlights, amongst other agent structure relations.

PERFORMANCE OF INDUSTRY The 1980s were a period of industrial decline. During this period industrial growth rate was also low. Public enterprises of the state started to decline in the mid 1980s which results in general stagnation. The picture becomes more pronounced by the growth rates of employment in the organized industries. In the 1990s, the growth rate of the formal industrial sector remain low, but the unorganized manufacturing sector experience a spectacular growth. There was a substantial increase in the informal sector manufacturing units.

SHARE OF WEST BENGAL IN INDIA FOR ORGANISED INDUSTRIES YEARPERCENTAGE SHARE 1980-8111.53 1981-8210.17 1982-839.86 1983-848.34 1984-858.42 1985-868.94 1986-879.27 1987-886.97 1988-897.12 1989-905.79

THE ECONOMICS AND POLITICS OF REFORM This phase is qualitatively different because the government of India started its much acclaimed economic reform in 1991, the main message was to encourage market economy to work more prominently in the economy which was under the dictates of economic planning for about forty years. One of the major segments of this reform was the revamped Industrial Policy Statement of the Indian government in July 1991. This policy is important to our discussion as it removed the need for industrial licensing for most of the large industries. So in quick succession, the government of India took away two major points of criticism from the government of West Bengal and despite initial rhetoric against the new industrial policy, which allowed the investors free choice and allowed foreign companies to Indian soil more easily.

THE ECONOMICS AND POLITICS OF REFORM From the political angle, in this phase the politics of reform tends to introduce a new phase of state business relationships in West Bengal. This period has two different features: first, the government of India changed its vacillating attitude and embraced the policies of liberalization, privatization and globalization. The government of West Bengal realized that West Bengal, which was at one point of time was the front ranking industrial state, had slipped much behind and in 1985 it had been contributing only 8 per cent of the total industrial output of the country. The government also realized that the withdrawal of the state from its welfare activities might have serious consequences for its pro-poor policy; it was in this context that the Left Front Government adopted an industrial policy in 1994. Secondly, India had entered into an era of coalition politics; the Left continued to play an important political role either as an opposition or as an ally of the ruling party at the centre.

FLUVIAL PROCESSES IN THE HUGLI ESTUARY The fluvial processes operating the in the Hugli estuary is extremely complex. In this funnel shaped and north-south aligned estuary, the tide dominates over the diminishing headwater supply even during the peak of monsoon. The Hugli estuary is unique in nature compared to many other outlets of the Ganga. It is the only river that reaches the sea in a southerly direction while all others flow in a south-easterly direction. The Bhagirathi-Hugli river has a catchment area an covering about 55617 sq.km and that is drained by seven major tributaries namely, Pagla, Bansloi, Mayurakshi, Ajoy, Damodar, Rupnarayan, Haldi, Jalangi and Churni. The lower 281 km. of river is tidal while the upper 221 km. remains perennial during lean months mainly by the induced water of the Ganga- Bhagirathi feeder canal.

HOOGHLY DISTRICT

HOOGHLY RIVER

RESUSCITATE THE DYING BHAGIRATHI CHANNEL The difficult and dangerous state of navigation in the Hugli estuary was a matter of deep anxiety of the British, as the navigation was intimately related to colonial exploitation. In fact, decay of the Bhagirathi- Hugli river started long before the establishment of Kolkata port. The construction of barrage across the Ganga and diversion of water towards the Bhagirathi was first suggested by Sir Arthur Cotton as far back as in 1853. The proposal to resuscitate the port of Kolkata was shelved till the independence when the National Government paid heed on the proposal. In 1957, Government of India invited Dr. W. Hensen to explore the causes of decay of the Hugli river and to suggest remedial measures. The construction of Farakka barrage was started in 1962 and was completed in 1971. The excavation of the 38km.long feeder canal took about four years and the project was commissioned on the 21st.May, 1975.

FLUVIAL CAUSES OF DECLINE The water resource engineering in India during the post-independent era was largely dedicated towards the expansion of irrigation to ensure the food security. The irrigation was the prime objective of 96% of 4291 dams built in India. The Farakka Barrage does not belong to this category and is unique in status even in the world. It was built with the pious intension of inducing water into the Hugli river with a view to flush the sediment load into the deeper part of estuary and resuscitate the navigational status of the Kolkata port. No other river-valley project of the world is comparable to the Farakka Barrage Project in respect of its objective that was based on arithmetic hydrology without any regard to multi-dimensional fluvial dynamics of the river. The sediment movement in tidal estuary of the Hugli is the function of a complex fluvial system that can hardly be governed by inducing 40000 cusec of water. The south flowing peak discharge in the Hugli even during monsoon hardly exceeds 4246 cumec only. This poses most serious constraints for silt management in the estuary.

SILT MANAGEMENT While constructing barrage across Ganga at Farakka and even during the last three decades of its operation, the silt-management in the Farakka pond was given no attention. It was largely the silt that has been trapped upstream of the barrage and that caused the disastrous consequences. The river bed upstream of the barrage is now so clogged with sediment that even a country boat can not negotiate freely during lean months. The river has been gnawing its left bank to open a new outlet outflanking the Farakka Barrage. The Geo-political scenario of the subcontinent has so changed since 1971 that operation of Farakka Barrage does not find a smooth passage. Nor the recommended discharge of 1132 cumec is induced for the port of Kolkata that continues to face the problem of navigational hazards. The lean season induced discharge in the river was below the threshold limit fixed for the maintenance of the navigability of the port of Kolkata. The catchment area of the Ganga has been drastically modified during last five decades.

SILT MANAGEMENT The induced water through Ganga-Bhagirathi feeder canal was supposed to flush the sediment load from the estuary and keep the navigation channel free from siltation. But the objective was proved a myth as sedimentation in the estuary continues unabated. It is admitted in the published document of the Kolkata Port Trust that induced discharge from Farakka Barrage has had not been able to negate the estuarine sedimentation. The annual quantum of dredging has increased from 6.40m.m3 during pre-farakka days to 13.24m.m3 during post-farakka days. This has further been increased to 21.18m.m3 per annum during 1999-2003.

SHARING OF THE GANGES WATERS It is a long-standing issue between India and Bangladesh over the appropriate allocation and development of the water resources of the Ganges River that flows from northern India into Bangladesh. The issue has remained a subject of conflict for almost 35 years, with several bilateral agreements and rounds of talks failing to produce results. The treaty established a 30-year water-sharing arrangement and recognized Bangladesh's rights as a lower-level riparian. The ex Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman signed the wide-ranging Indo-Bangladeshi Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace on March 19, 1972; as per the treaty, the two nations established a Joint River Commission to work for the common interests and sharing of water resources, irrigation, floods and cyclones control.

FARAKKA BARRAGE The Farakka Barrage is a dam on the Bhagirathi river located in the Indian state of West Bengal. India uses it to control the flow of the Ganges river. The dam was built to divert the Ganges River water into the Hooghly River during the dry season, from January to June, in order to flush out the accumulating silt which in the 1950s and 1960s was a problem at the Kolkata Port on the Hooghly River. Bangladesh claims that its rivers were drying up because of excess drawing of water by India. In May 1974 a joint declaration was issued to resolve the watersharing issue before the Farakka Barrage began operation. This was followed by an interim agreement in 1975 to allow India to operate feeder canals of the barrage for short periods. However, India withdrew from the process of negotiations by September 1976 as both nations grew apart after the killing of Sheikh Mujib and establishment of military rule. Bangladesh protested India's unilateral action at a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and at the 31st session of the U.N. General Assembly. At the urging of other nations and the U.N., both India and Bangladesh agreed to resume dialogue, but with no results.

THE DRAINAGE MAP AROUND FARAKKA BARRAGE

NAVIGABILITY OF THE PORT Calcutta Port Trust acquired the largest fleet of dredging vessels to maintain the channel to meet the increasing drafts of the incoming vessels. The length of these ships also increased to meet the economic needs of shipping charges for transports of merchandise in increasing bulks. The sharp bends increasingly made it difficult for the long haul ships to negotiate. The same rationale led to the creation of a modem dock complex at Haldia. Further shift of port facilities at further downstream locations are being explored. The Sagar Roads is being contemplated as the location to set up the facilities for a modern port. This shifting is unavoidable, because neither the dredgers nor diversion of water from the Ganges through the Farakka Barrage are seen quite adequate to keep the section of the channel upstream of Sagar Island suitable for the modern ships to negotiate.

NAVIGABILITY OF THE PORT The river is suffering from reducing draft, the economy of the hinterland of the Port of Calcutta has also declined. But the counter argument is that India needs increasing trading ties with the overseas countries. But no other port exists on the eastern coast of India that can match the natural advantage of Calcutta. The Ganges and the Brahmaputra valleys can be most easily accessed from Calcutta. There is also no reason to believe that economy of Eastern India will never revive. Granting the claim that a modem port must unavoidably come up at the Sagar Island, It would only be a further extension of the Calcutta Port Complex along the river. What remains to be seen is how the Hooghly River Port Complex that has emerged through historical processes meet this challenge. To keep all the port installation active by using one seaway that demands cautious guidance from pilots and concerted dredging of continual deposition of silt will certainly need centralized control. But the distance between these individual installations and the specialized nature of their designed functions would need decentralized decision making.

NAVIGABILITY OF THE PORT How the Port Complex of Calcutta balances these two types of managerial culture would be an interesting point for debate. Haldia Port Complex was necessary for two specific reasons. One was the declining draft in the river. The other appeared as a compulsion if Calcutta Port wished to continue participating in the overseas trade. The change came the shape of preference for bulk cargo handling. It reduced the need for labour deployment in preference for ever increasing mechanization of cargo handling practices. The Haldia port was designed for this purpose. It could handle coal, iron ore. The coal berths in Kidderpore Dock became defunct. The petroleum refinery at Haldia gave a fillip to import of crude petroleum. The same installation could also be used for increased import of downstream products of petroleum. Although the prospect of bulk export of iron-ore from Haldia did not materialize, the gears installed for this purpose were quickly modified to deal with bulk handling of coal. Similarly the failed move for fertilizer production was compensated by bulk import of coking coal. Each one of these items of merchandise needed plants and machineries of the kind that was not available in the earlier laid complexes of the Port of Calcutta. In all such areas, the technological differences enforced division of labour between the Haldia and the old complex at Calcutta. But in the area of containerized traffic, the need for similar division of jobs and responsibilities did not happen easily.

GEOMORPHIC PROCESSES OF BANK FAILURE The deltaic rivers have the tendency to oscillate with wide limit. The swatch of meander sweep is proportional to the discharge flowing through of the river. The principal river also throws off distributaries to facilitate delta-building operation. The distributaries may be alternately rejuvenated and decayed with the passage of time. In an uncontrolled situation, the rivers enjoy the opportunity of free swing. But in this densely populated part of the World, the human intervention exerts immense influence on the river system and interrupts its natural behaviour. The Ganga system in West Bengal has some unique characteristics in respect of its fluctuating discharge, sediment load, tidal intrusion in the lower reach, role of western tributaries, diminishing slope of the thalweg, reversible hydraulic gradient with high and low tide and neotectonic of the delta. The various river training works exert large influence on the fluvial dynamics of the delta. The flood-control embankments, bank revetment with boulders, construction of the spurs to deflect the impinging current, enormous exploitation of the ground water causing interrupt the fluvial dynamic of the delta.

BANK EROSION

DECLINE OF PORT INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY OF HUGLI RIVER BELT.

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