Target Inland waterways to boost sea merchandise trade

Chennai:

In a bid to boost India’s sea borne trade of merchandise, which has dipped by nearly 18 per cent, shipping experts have stressed the need to capitalize on the 14,500 km of navigable inland waterways by linking it to minor ports.

 

At the inaugural session of Conference on Coastal Shipping and Inland Waterways organized by Confederation of Indian Industry here on Saturday, former deputy national secretary and Chhattisgarh governor Shekhar Dutt said that the sea borne trade for merchandise has fallen from 31.5 per cent a decade ago to just 13.7 per cent as there is not enough capacity to carry more of Indian cargo and additions to the Indian fleet have concentrated on oil tankers.

Stressing the need to move towards full exploitation of container shipping which allows major ports to connect with minor ports who in turn will connect with inland waterways, he said there is need to include a policy on cabotage that reserves coastal cargo for Indian ships. “This policy will be useful only if our smaller ports see a integration with our inland waterways,” he said.

The cost of development of inland waterways has been estimated to be a mere 5-10 per cent of the cost of developing  an equivalent four-lane highway or similar railway. “In terms of maintenance cost, inland water ways is placed at 20 per cent of that of roads. One litre of  fuel can move 24 tonne- Km of freight by road, 85 by rail and 105 by inland water ways’’, the governor said.

Director of National Maritime Foundation (NMF) Vice Admiral (Retd) Pradeep Kaushiva said the extensive network of rivers and canals, if developed for shipping and navigation, could  provide an efficient network of trade and mass transportation and rued that the change- over to coastal shipping from the road and rail transportation has not taken place.

B  Santhanam, Deputy Chairman, CII (Southern Region)  and  Managing Director, Saint Gobain Glass India said that nearly 90 per cent  of India’s  international trade by volume and 77 per cent by value  was carried by sea. Only 10 per cent of this one billion tonne cargo movement was done by coastal shipping. “The use of inland water transportation at present was insignificant, except to an extent in Kerala, Only 0.1 per cent of  the total trade was  by inland waterways,’ he added.