`Focus on inland water transport to boost growth'

Our Bureau

KOCHI, Dec. 27

GREATER involvement of State governments in developing the inland water transport (IWT) sector would be essential to derive the benefits of the country's IWT policy so as to accelerate the economic growth, speakers at a recent seminar on IWT have suggested.

Since India has vast IWT potential, it could play a significant role in augmenting the country's transport infrastructure. They said the country has about 14,500 km of inland waterways network comprising rivers, lakes and canals and the IWT sector has only recently received its due attention. Much more needs to be done to really take advantage of this sector, they added.

IWT in many western countries as also some Asian countries has already emerged as an alternate mode of transport.

The Mississippi river in US and the St Lawrence river between US and Canada have backbones for cargo transportation of industrial and agricultural produce. Cargo movement through IWT in India is a meagre one per cent as against 10-20 per cent share in the US, Europe and China, they said.

With global economy and the WTO regime, there would be greater movement of goods to and fro. This would create heavy pressure on the already burdened transport system of rail and road. There is limit for expansion of rail and road capacity on account of constraints of available land, exorbitant cost and environmental considerations.

The cost effectiveness of IWT could be assessed from the fact that while the development of one km of highway costs Rs 6 crore, much less than this amount is enough to develop 100 km of waterway.

There are some hazardous commodities which should not be allowed to be transported on road. In view of these constraints and considerations, the development of inland water transport has become relevant in today's context.

Participants at the seminar have also emphasised the need for development of IWT as an alternate mode of transport in view of its cost-effectiveness and eco-friendliness.

IWT has advantages over railways and roadways both in terms of cost and energy consumption in cargo transportation. As per estimates, for every one rupee spent for IWT development, the corresponding cost for the development of same length of roadways and railways would be Rs 2 and Rs 5, respectively. In case of energy consumption, the ratio would be between 1.5 and 4, respectively.

The major inherent advantages of IWT include doubling of load capacities for a small increase in depth thereby providing an aging flexibility and cost elasticity which do not exist in other modes of transport.

Besides lower fuel consumption and construction costs, the IWT has the advantage of ensuring minimum human loss against very frequent accidents occurring in the case of roads and railways.