RIVER HOOGHLY

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Context:

PM Modi inaugurates India’s first under-river metro route in Kolkata.

Details:

Hooghly River

• Hooghly River, also known as Bhagirathi-Hooghly, Ganga and Kati-Ganga runs approximately for 260-kilometre as a distributary of the Ganges River in West Bengal.
• It is formed in Murshidabad, where Ganga splits into two parts – while the part flowing through Bangladesh is called the Padma.
• Haldi, Ajay, Damodar, and Rupnarayan are the rivers that feed the lower reaches of the Hooghly.
• Another man-made bifurcation of the river upstream is situated at Farakka. This supplies the Hooghly with adequate water even in the dry season.
• The Hooghly’s majority of water comes from the Farakka Feeder Canal instead of natural water.
• The other part is the Hooghly, which flows through a heavily industrialised area of West Bengal.
• The Hooghly river is silted up above Kolkata, and the river flows to the west and south to the estuary of Rupnarayan and then south and southwest to enter the Bay of Bengal through a 32 km-wide estuary.
• The important cities near the Hoogli River are Jiaganj, Azimganj, Murshidabad, and Baharampur.
• Lifeline for Kolkata, transportation route for goods and people, historical trade route, cultural and ecological resource.
• The Ganga - Bhagirathi - Hooghly river system between Haldia (Sagar) and Allahabad (1620 km) was declared as National Waterway-1 (NW-1) in 1986.
• Challenges associated with the river: Changing course, frequent floods, pollution from industrial effluents and sewage.
• The Hooghly River faces pollution challenges due to industrial and domestic waste discharge

Recent development

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a metro train service between Howrah Maidan and Esplanade in Kolkata, marking the opening of India’s first under-river tunnel.
• The 4.8-km tunnel between Howrah Maidan and Esplanade includes a 1.2-km section, positioned 30 meters below the Hooghly River, establishing it as the country’s first transportation tunnel beneath a significant river.