Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
The luxury cruise has three decks, 18 suites on board with a capacity of 36 tourists, with all the amenities. Image Source: IANS
In addition to important towns like Patna in Bihar, Sahibganj in Jharkhand, Kolkata in West Bengal, Dhaka in Bangladesh, and Guwahati in Assam, the aboard passengers visited 50 tourist destinations during their journey, including world heritage sites, national parks and river ghats.
MV Ganga Vilas, the world’s longest river cruise completed its maiden voyage in Dibrugarh, Assam on Tuesday, February 28, 2023. The luxury river cruise started its journey on January 13 from Varanasi. The cruise travelled through five states: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Assam. On February 17, it arrived in Assam through Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ganga Vilas covered 3,200 kilometre across 27 river systems. In addition to important towns like Patna in Bihar, Sahibganj in Jharkhand, Kolkata in West Bengal, Dhaka in Bangladesh, and Guwahati in Assam, the aboard passengers visited 50 tourist destinations during their journey, including world heritage sites, national parks and river ghats.
The luxury cruise has three decks, 18 suites on board with a capacity of 36 tourists, with all the amenities. The daily cost of the MVA Ganga Vilas cruise is between Rs 25,000 and Rs 50,000. The overall cost of the entire trip is around Rs 20 lakh per passenger. The cruise director stated there is a sewage treatment facility on board to prevent sewage from entering the Ganges and a filtration plant to purify the Ganga water for bathing and other purposes.
The tent city in Varanasi was also inaugurated by the PM on January 13 along with the cruise. He laid the foundation stones for several other inland waterways projects worth Rs 1,000 crore. He said that the work is being done for the development of around 111 national waterways across 24 states. Under the National Waterways Act of 2016, 111 waterways, including 5 already-existing and 106 new ones, have been designated as National Waterways (NWs) to encourage inland water transportation in the nation. One of the largest benefits of the development of a full-fledged inland waterway system is the smooth and cost-efficient movement of cargo, giving a major boost to the economy.
In an interview, Sarbananda Sonowal, minister of ports, shipping and waterways said that, “development of coastal and river shipping, including cruise services, is one of the priorities of the government and that more such services would be launched to tap the country’s enormous potential in this area. Besides promoting passenger traffic on rivers, the development of inland waterway systems would also facilitate trade and cargo services and give a boost to tourism around the areas along its route.”
The chart below shows the movement of cargo (in metric tons) from April to September 2021 and 2022 through the major national waterways in the country.
Source: Inland Waterways Authority of India
The chart shows there has been a massive increase in the movement of cargo by ships through the National Waterways. Around 40,67,453 metric tons of cargo was transported through National Waterway 1 (Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly River System (Haldia-Allahabad) from April-September 2021. The amount of cargo transported through NW 1 increased to 65,02,873 metric tons between April-September 2022, registering an increase of 60 percent. The highest increase in the transportation of cargo was recorded by National Waterway 4 (Krishna-Godavari River System). The amount of cargo transported through NW 4 increased from 22,72,992 metric tons during April-September 2021 to 57,08,515 metric tons during April-September 2022. This was an increase of 151 percent. The second highest growth in the transportation of cargo was registered by National Waterway 2 (Brahmaputra River (Dhubri-Sadiya). The cargo movement on NW 4 increased from 1,45,271 metric tons during April-September 2021 to 3,36,504 metric tons from April-September 2022, reporting a growth of 132 percent.
The increase in the movement of cargo shows that transportation of goods through the Inland Water Transport (IWT) is now a preferred choice among the logistics transporters. There’s another reason why waterways has seen a dramatic increase in transportation. Cargo movement by inland waterways is the cheapest form of transportation when compared to other modes like airways, railways or roadways. If we compare, transportation through waterways costs only 1.06 Rs/km, as compared to 2.50 Rs/km by road and 1.36 Rs/km by railways. One litre of fuel moves 24 ton/km on road, 95 ton/km through rail and 215 ton/km through the Inland Water Transport (IWT).
The Sagarmala Project, which intends to promote port-led direct and indirect development, as well as the eastern and western Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs) are also proposed to be connected to the waterways. The links are being designed in a way that allows goods and cargo to be switched between waterways, DFCs, and road transport. The aim is to link numerous significant infrastructure projects with the inland waterways.
As the above data suggests, transport by inland waterways is cost-effective, environment friendly and cheaper than alternate sources. Till now, India haven’t use its huge network of inland waterways to solve the logistics problem. But in the past few years, the government has realised its true potential and is thus making efforts for the growth of coastal and inland waterways.
