In 2024-25, freight on India’s national waterways reached a record high of 145.5 million tonnes
New Delhi:
Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has achieved a major achievement. IWAI has set a record of 145.5 million tonnes of goods on the country’s national waterways during FY 2024-25. The Ministry of port, vessel transport and waterways issued a statement saying that the total number of operating waterways during FY 2025 has increased from 24 to 29. Increased waterways have helped in more goods transport.
Traffic rapid increase in last decade
Between 2014-2025, an unexpected increase in the region has been recorded. Between this decade, the freight on national waterways has increased from 18.10 MMT to 145.5 MMT. It has increased by 20.86 percent CAGR.
Traffic movement in FY 2025 has registered a 9.34 percent increase on an annual basis compared to the previous year. In 2025, 68 percent of the total goods carrying on National Waterways (NW), coal,
Iron ore, iron ore powder, sand and fly were ash.
Waterwriters plan to stream the movement
The hydroelectric scheme was started in December last year. It was constructed to streamline the movement of goods on NW. To promote this scheme, through India-Bangladesh Protocol
Scheduled cargo service on NW-1, NW-2 and NW-16 was started. The scheme is expected to divert 800 million tonnes of cargo in IWT mode, which is about 17 percent of the current 4,700 million tonnes of cargo on national waterways.
National Waterways Regulations made for the development of inland terminals
The National Waterways (Jetty/Terminals) Regulations have been constructed to encourage private sector investment in the development of inland terminals on national waterways. Private, public and joint enterprise institutions digital portal
Through NOC from IWAI, you can develop jetty/terminal across the country. To promote the movement of cargo, other initiatives include the development of fairway for trouble-free operations. End-to-end dragging contracts have been released for the identified parts on national waterways. The introduction of roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) and Ro-Pax services on various national waterways has also helped in promoting traffic.
(This news has not been edited by the NDTV team. This syndicate has been published directly from the feed.)
