• Cargo traffic on National Waterways touched a record high of 145.5 million tonnes in the financial year 2024-25.

• The total number of operational waterways has gone up from 24 to 29 during the year.

• In FY25, traffic movement registered a growth of 9.34 per cent year-on-year.

• Five commodities — coal, iron ore, iron ore fines, sand and fly ash — constituted over 68 per cent of the total cargo moved on NWs during the year.

• Cargo traffic on National Waterways has increased from 18.10 MMT to 145.5 MMT between FY-14 and FY-25, recording a CAGR of 20.86 per cent.

• As on February 1, the total stretch of operational NWs in the country is 5,131 km. 

Scope of Inland Water Transport in India

• An efficient transport system, where there is optimal utilisation of various modes of transport, is pivotal for enhancing logistics efficiencies and costs. This also leads to reduction in the transport sector related emissions in the country. 

• India, currently, faces an unbalanced logistics landscape with a significant reliance on road and rail networks for transporting freight cargo.

• Road transport dominates the sector, accounting for approximately 65 per cent modal share followed by rail at 26 per cent modal share. In contrast, Inland Water Transport has only a 2 per cent share in India's overall freight movement.

• India is endowed with various Inland Water Transport (IWT) options that comprise rivers, canals, backwaters, creeks, and tidal inlets. 

• India’s modal share of freight moved on inland waterways has significant potential to improve compared to other best in class benchmarks. 

• IWT mode is widely recognised for its fuel efficiency, environmental friendliness, and cost-effectiveness, especially for bulk goods, over-dimensional cargo, and hazardous goods. 

• To make this mode commercially viable, it's essential to develop IWT infrastructure (fairway, terminals, and navigation aids) and create an enabling environment for private sector fleet augmentation.

• To harness the potential of IWT, Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) was established in 1986, and since has been working towards development and regulation of inland waterways. 

• The IWAI focuses on developing technically and economically viable NWs under the National Waterways Act, 2016, to supplement the congested road and rail networks. 

• For development of Inland Water Transport (IWT) in the country, 111 waterways spread over 24 states have been declared as National Waterways (NWs) under the National Waterways Act, 2016.

• The development and regulation of waterways not declared as National Waterways remain under the purview of the respective state governments.

• The Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly River system (1,620 km from Allahabad to Haldia) was declared as NW-1 in 1986. Since then, the IWAI has undertaken various developmental works to improve navigability and maintain infrastructure, as laid out in the IWAI Act, 1985. Significant enhancements have been implemented for NW-1, including the expedited construction of terminals, community jetties, and a navigational lock. River conservancy works such as maintenance dredging and bandalling were also carried out to ensure navigable depth. Efforts were made to enhance multimodal connectivity for cargo and passenger movement.

• NW-1, NW-2 (River Brahmaputra, Dhubri to Sadiya), and NW-3 (West Coast Canal, Kottapuram to Kollam, including Udyogmandal and Champakara Canals) have been developed with fairways, navigational aids, jetties, and terminals equipped for cargo handling.

• An amount of Rs 6,434 crore has been invested by the central government from 2014-15 to 2023-24 for development of NWs in the country.

Steps taken to enhance inland waterway connectivity

1) Infrastructure development: This includes fairway maintenance works (river training, maintenance dredging, channel marking and regular hydrographic surveys), construction of community jetties, floating terminals, multimodal terminals (MMTs), inter-modal Terminals (IMT) and navigational lock, etc. 

2) Jalvahak - Cargo Promotion Scheme: A scheme for providing 35 per cent incentive to promote the utilisation of inland waterways transport sector by cargo owners and for establishing scheduled service for cargo movement on NW-1 and NW-2 and NW-16 via Indo-Bangladesh Protocol has been approved by the government. This scheme aims to divert 800 million tonne km cargo on IWT mode, which is nearly 17 per cent of the current cargo of 4700 million tonne km on NWs. The scheme also aims to start a scheduled waterway cargo service between Kolkata and Varanasi/Pandu using IWAI vessels through Shipping Corporation of India for demonstration effect and to increase trust of cargo movers/owners in the waterway movement.

3) Shift of cargo by PSUs: For modal shift of cargo to waterways, Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) have been approached with the respect to move their cargo using IWT mode. Various central ministries have been requested to advise the PSUs under their jurisdiction to utilise IWT mode as far as possible and earmark a certain percentage of their cargo for IWT mode keeping in line the MIV targets.

4) River Cruise Tourism: To promote river cruise tourism, a number of meetings with cruise operators have been organised. Based on their feedback, steps like provision of shore power at IWAI terminals, extra berthing arrangements, etc have been made. New cruise circuits have been identified and are being operationalised. A total of 34 waterways have been identified for cruise movement and 10 have already been operationalised.

5) Digital Solutions: Implementation of digital solutions like CAR-D portal and PANI portal for ease of doing business, central database for registration of vessel and crew (Jalyan & Navic) to promote digitisation, Naudarshika (National River Traffic and Navigation System) for safety and smooth operations of inland vessels.

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