The Hindu Business Line : Put railways, inland waterways in the driving seat

The soaring crude price, which may reach $150 soon, and urban congestion choking the cities and getting worse each day, are two crucial issues that India faces. The transport sector, the main diesel guzzler, may have an answer to the problems.

Roadways and railways have dominated India’s transportation, the former getting more importance since the beginning of the economic reforms on the ground that it is in the private sector. At present, both the modes are overburdened in certain sections, with roadways becoming prohibitively expensive. One way out of the impasse could be a shift in relative emphasis between the various modes.

Balanced development

This brings us to the crucial question of balanced regional development. The present pattern of freight traffic has emerged as a result of the lopsided development of certain regions within the economy. To achieve more balanced growth, the resources available within a region have to be used more evenly.

This can be done, at least partially, by developing alternatives to the present transport network, which involves long haul of goods across the country by national highways and railways. Inland waterways,

In the present milieu of preoccupation with the national highways, some Rs 60,000 crore has been pumped in for joining Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Silchar to Porbandar and widening the Highways joining the four metros, the inland waterways, State highways and district roads have been sadly neglected.

Intriguingly, it has consistently been overlooked that roadways, being far more energy-consuming than the other two modes and suitable for short haul of goods, should be complementary, and not supplementary, to the railways or the waterways — that is, as a feeder service to the other two.

In practice, however, the opposite is the case. The Highways have been aligned more or less parallel to the railways — supplementing the latter and not complementing them — and budgetary support to the railways has consistently fallen far short of its needs to complete essential projects. In fact, had the inland waterways, State highways and district roads got their due share of attention, the present problem of land shortage for industrialisation could have been largely mitigated. Since all the three are in a sorry state due to neglect, they cannot carry the freight for industry fast enough. So, vast areas in the countryside remain inaccessible to industry.

All over India, many stretches of State highways too are not usable during the monsoon. As for the district roads, the less said the better. These are also the stumbling blocks for medium and small scale industries to move their goods. The States need to join hands with the Centre to solve this problem.

Consuming less energy

A detailed study by the Planning Commission found that barges of 1,500 tonnes with a load of 75 per cent moved on inland waterways consume 46 per cent of the energy consumed by diesel rail traction and only 7.4 per cent of the energy consumed by diesel trucks.

The state of the waterways is certainly better than earlier, but it is still far from satisfactory. For instance, the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system, the National Waterway No.1 (NW1), connects the ports of Kolkata and Haldia to central West Bengal, north Bihar and eastern UP. The hinterland of these ports also spreads to Nepal. Yet, night navigation facility is not available, doubling the transit time, and even the minimum draft along the channel is not assured during the dry season, which is half the year, beyond Patna.

Modern cargo handling facilities are available only at Farakka, Patna and Kolkata. If these impediments are removed, the NW1, along with the ports, can offer economies in cargo transportation to its vast hinterland, which possibly no other transport can match.

Thus, a shift in emphasis away from national highways to the railways and inland waterways for long haul of bulk goods and to the State highways and the district roads for short haul can reduce the nation’s oil import bill and urban congestion.

(The author was formerly Senior Economist Assocham, New Delhi and M.N. Dastur & Co. Ltd, Kolkata.)

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