The Hindu Business Line : Cabinet nod for amendments to Inland Vessels Act

The Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, and the Communications & IT Minister, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, coming out after a Cabinet meeting in the Capital on Thursday. — Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi , Oct. 6

INLAND vessels registered in one State will be allowed to ply in another State up to a period of three years against the existing norm of one year. The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved amendments in the Inland Vessels Act, 1917 to streamline inland waterways transportation.

Briefing presspersons after the meeting of the Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr S. Jaipal Reddy, said that the Inland Vessels (Amendment) Bill, 2005 would be introduced in the winter session of Parliament, starting next month.

According to sources, the amendments would mean that inland vessels would now be checked to ensure that they do not cause pollution. Currently, the Act does not address the pollution aspect.

Besides this, the insurance regime for inland vessels would be brought at par with that of motor vehicles.

"The insurance regime for inland vessels was the same as in the case of motor vehicles till 1988 but things changed with the amendment of the Motor Vehicles Act. With the latest set of amendments in the Inland Vessels Act, the insurance norms would again fall in sync with that of motor vehicles," a senior Government official said.

The Shipping Ministry's move to streamline inland waterways transportation has been hobbled by several State-level maritime boards, which have imposed restrictions on free movement of inland vessels from one State to another.

Sources said some of the State maritime boards were trying to exert pressure on inland operators to restrict movement of their vessels in the State where these were registered.

This makes it difficult for the operators to run their services freely on the inter-State waterways.

In this backdrop, inland operators made a strong case to the Shipping Ministry to suitably amend the Inland Vessels Act, 1917, to remove such limitations, especially as the existing three national waterways meander through six States.

Inland operators argue that such restrictions should be lifted as the three national waterways cover Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Inland water transportation accounts for 1.7 billion tonne km, or just 0.17 per cent of the total inland traffic in the country estimated at 1,000 billion tonne km. It is estimated that a shift of one billion tonne km from roads to inland water transportation would translate into a saving of Rs 80 crore on account of fuel alone.

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