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Convoy in trouble enroute from india to Bangladesh

In the evening of Nov 24, 2019. the 'Beki' sent a distress call after running aground on the Jamuna river in Bangladesh. The ship, which was carrying coal from Haldia to Guwahati, also asked the accompanying vessels 'Maheshwari' and 'Aai' to drop anchor immediately to prevent it from getting stuck in the shallow river bed. The vessels were part of India’s first attempt to send containerised cargo via a river from Kolkata to Guwahat, reducing cost and time to reach the landlocked region which can otherwise be reached only through the narrow Chicken’s Neck corridor in north Bengal. By using the river route, goods can reach Guwahati and be then transported across the Northeast. The three vessels — the biggest being the 'Maheshwari', which Adani Group has charterer to ferry edible oil and other material — were flagged off by Shipping Secretary Gopal Krishna on November 4. According to the itinerary, the 1,425 km journey traversing Hemnagar (border), Khulna, Sirajganj, Chilmari (border), Dhubri and Pandu was to be covered in 12-15 days. After starting their journey, the three ships had to brave the Bulbul, the tropical cyclone that hit Odisha, West Bengal and Bangladesh around November 10. The cyclone halted the vessels in Sunderbans for a couple of days. When the vessels entered Bangladesh and were near Sirajganj around the last week of November, the 'Beki' ran aground. Indian officials suspected the local maritime pilot perhaps led it into a channel that did not have the required depth. Officials of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority and Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) swung into action and launched a joint salvage operation. During the next couple of days, a dredger was brought in to clear the mud around the ships and to make a path for them. A tug was deployed from Dhubri, and the ship resumed the voyage soon after. In the first week of December, at least one of the ships ran aground near Chilmari andremained stuck for three days before a dredger came to rescue them again. In the night of Dec 5, the three vessels had reached Hatsingimari in western Assam where they had to get the mandatory security clearance from the Border Security Force before reentering India’s waters and proceeding towards Guwahati.