On July 16th Prime Minister’s Office announced that it has formed a committee to study how private investment can be attracted to improve infrastructure in the inland waterways, which are emerging as cost effective transport routes along some of the important industrial corridors.
India is trying to improve their share in national transport.
“In several countries, IWT accounts for a substantial share as a percentage of the total: 32 per cent in Bangladesh, 20 in Germany, 14 in the U.S. and 9 in China. In China, much of the increase has occurred in recent decades, in tandem with its phenomenal industrial-agricultural growth. By contrast, in India only 0.15 per cent of domestic surface transport is accounted for by IWT, compared with 68 per cent for road and 30 per cent for rail.” – (The Hindu)
If you search web for maps of our inland waterways, hardly you will get any thing. Below are the maps of 5 declared national highways and brief information about them.
National Waterways
(i) National Waterway-1: Allahabad-Haldia stretch of the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river (1620 Km) declared as NW in 1986 in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
(ii) National Waterway-2: Sadiya-Dhubri stretch of the Brahmaputra river (891 Km) declared as NationalWaterway in 1988 in the state of Assam.
(iii) National Waterway-3: Kollam-Kottapuram stretch of West Coast Canal and Champakara and Udyogmandal canals (205 Km) declared as National Waterway in 1993 in the state of Kerala
(iv) National Waterway-4: Kakinada-Pudducherry stretch of canals and Kaluvelly tank, Bhadrachalam-Rajahmundry stretch of river Godavari and Wazirabad-Vijayawada stretch of river Krishna (1078 Km) declared as National Waterway in 2008 in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Union Territory of Puducherry.
(v) National Waterway-5: Talcher-Dhamra stretch of Rivers, Geonkhali-Charbatia stretch of East Coast Canal, Charbatia-Dhamra stretch of Matai river and Mahanadi Delta Rivers (588 Km) declared as National Waterway in 2008 in the states of West Bengal and Orissa.
