State Irrigation and Waterways Minister Rajib Banerjee in the Assembly said the vessels were facing inconvenience to enter into Kolkata port due to silting in Hooghly River.
Vessel services in some parts of Howrah, South 24-Parganas and Midnapore have been affected as the Centre is not carrying out dredging.
Banerjee said that despite of repeated pleas, the Central government is not doing anything in this regard.
The minister said that his department has written to the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation to initiate the work, but no steps have been taken yet.
The minister also said that he had urged the Union Minister Uma Bharti during their meeting to take some steps to carry out dredging in the river but nothing happened. The state government cannot carry out dredging work, the minister said. The Union minister had given assurances to the state government to undertake dredging works in the state but her ministry is yet to take a step in this regard.
He said that vessels were facing difficulties entering the Kolkata port. The panels deposited near Kolaghat bridge number 1 were not removed and as a result, the movement of water is getting interrupted. It would be difficult to continue vessel services in various parts if the dredging is not carried out.
Banerjee has also said that his department has taken various initiatives in past five years to check the erosion in the river Tangan river in Bamangola and Habibpur block area in Malda. The minister said that around Rs 12.63 crore have been spent to check river erosion along 4.1 km at Parhabinagar and 1.01 km at Dobakhoksan.
Erosion has been stopped at Iho village under Habibpur block at the cost of around Rs 4.5 crore.
The Irrigation and Waterways department has also taken some other schemes to stop erosion in a stretch of 1.3 km along the Tangan river in Bamangola.