The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has since 2010 spent just about Rs 1,120 crore compared to the huge investments that China and Germany have made for their waterways.
“It is high time that the Central and the State governments should shift a bulk of the goods moved through rail and roads to inland navigation to benefit from its cost and logistical advantages,” IWAI Chairman Amitabh Verma insisted in a consultative meeting on National Waterway-4 held here on Sunday. Mr. Verma said coal imported from Indonesia for the NTPC power plant at Barh in Patna was being entirely moved from a port on the east coast to the project site through waterways on an experimental basis.
The outcome of this trial holds great importance for throwing open the five National Waterways (NW-1 Ganga – 1620 km, NW-2 Brahmaputra - 891 km, NW-3 West Coast Canal System – 205 km, NW-4 comprising Godavari and Krishna rivers and Buckingham canal – 1078 km and NW-5 Brahmani and Mahanadi rivers and East Coast Canal – 588 km) to traffic.
The Barak River in Assam was proposed as NW-6 and Indo-Bangladesh protocol routes connect National Waterways 1, 2 and 6.
Mr. Verma said a kilometre-long waterway was four times cheaper than a road and half as expensive as a railway line.
'Modal shift'
The biggest advantage of waterways was reduction in road and rail congestion, pollution and accidents.
The ‘modal shift’ in transportation of goods from road and rail to waterways was the need of the hour, he said.
