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106 waterways to be declared National Waterways

Aiming to take advantage of cost and improving fuel efficiency, the Government of India plans to declare as many as 106 new waterways across 24 states of the country as National Waterways, Shipping Minister Pon Radhakrishnan has said.

Radhakrishnan said that one litre of fuel moves 24 ton-km on road, 95 ton-km on rail and 215 ton-km on IWT and as such there is immense potential of saving cost as well as improving efficiency for transportation of material through waterways.

According to a rough estimate, the operating cost for the movement of freight through rail comes to about Rs 1.41 per ton km and that of road is Rs 2.58 per ton km, he said.

However, the operating cost comes down drastically to about Rs 1.06 per ton km for movement of freight through inland waterways, the minister said.

Radhakrishnan said already 5 waterways have been declared national under the relevant Act.

“To increase the network of inland waterways the National Waterways Bill, 2015 has been introduced in the Lok Sabha, under which 106 new waterways across 24 states are proposed to be declared as National Waterways,” he said.

 ‘Jal Marg Vikas’ is a World Bank-aided project for capacity augmentation of River Ganga and under it National Waterway-1 will further develop the river for navigational purpose.

Inland Water Transport (IWT) mode is recognised as an economical, fuel-efficient and environment-friendly mode of transport, especially for the movement of bulk cargo, hazardous goods and over-dimensional cargo.

According to the Integrated National Waterways Transportation Grid Study conducted in 2014 by RITES, cost saving and fuel efficiency is a key benefit of the IWT mode compared to rail and road transportation.