Smooth flow

Inland waterways have benefits in terms of cost and the environment

The Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to leverage inland waterways to move export-bound cargo to international seaports seems a welcome step towards developing a multimodal transport system in the country. Though the intention of this land-locked state, quite clearly, is to use the vast stretch of the river Ganga to carry goods directly to the Haldia port in West Bengal for shipments abroad, the integration of the Varanasi-Haldia inland waterway with the existing roads and highways network would translate into a convenient and coherent cargo and passenger transportation system. What is even more important is that it might, hopefully, spur other states also to gainfully utilise their water transport potential, which, at present, is either not harnessed or is grossly underutilised.
 

India has a huge inland waterways network, spanning nearly 15,000 km, in the form of rivers, rivulets, canals, backwaters, creeks, and other kinds of water bodies, which can be used for the movement of goods and passengers. The National Waterways Act, 2016, has identified as many as 111 navigable water courses and declared them “national inland waterways”. Sadly, only about 25 of them have so far been developed into operable water channels and merely 13 are being used fully or partially for this purpose. The significant ones among them are the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly track; Brahmaputra; Barak; the rivers in Goa; the backwaters in Kerala; the inland waters in the Godavari-Krishna deltaic area; and the water stretches in the Mumbai region. Most other commercially navigable waterways are largely unutilised despite the exigency of expanding the overall transport and logistics network to cater to the growing needs of the developing economy. Not more than 60 million tonnes of cargo is carried through these waterways annually. This compares rather poorly with countries like the US and China, and the European Union, where more than 20 per cent of merchandise transportation is done through waterways. With the passing of the Inland Vessels Act in India last year, the situation might begin to look up because this statute is aimed specifically at making the country’s inland waterways a viable, convenient, and thriving mode of transportation for both freight and passengers.

Inland water transportation, indisputably, is a relatively cost-effective, hassle-free, and environment-friendly mode of ferrying goods, especially bulk cargo such as coal, fly-ash, iron, and odd-sized consignments. A World Bank study has found that water transportation is about 30 per cent cheaper than railways and 60 per cent less expensive than roadways. Besides, the carbon emission is merely 32-36 gramme (gm) per tonne-km in the case of container vessels, against 51-91 gm by road transport vehicles. Such gains make it a preferable mode of conveyance where the speed of delivery is not a significant issue.

However, there are also some prerequisites for the optimal utilisation of inland waterways. For one, these water courses would need to be regularly dredged to clear silt, weeds, and other obstructions. Besides, the network of terminal facilities and loading and unloading points would need to be augmented, though some work is said to be already underway on this front. And, on top of that, adequate water flows would need to be maintained in these streams at all times. Otherwise, the huge potential of this sector would remain poorly harnessed, as it is now.