Sarbananda Sonowal said, “We are gradually working towards having 100 per cent of vessels powered through green fuel by 2047. Over the next 5 years, MoPSW will have about 300 to 400 electric vessels plying on inland waterways.”
India is already on the global river tourism map. World’s longest river cruise MV Ganga Vilas which was flagged off on January 13 has been a blockbuster. It has been so successful that the service is already booked in advance for the next five to seven years. The river cruise had sailed for 3200 km from Varanasi to Dibrugarh, using the Indo-Bangladesh route.
The river cruise tourism was disturbed due to Covid-19 during 2020-21. Till now, ten river cruise movements have happened on IBP route. The active route for river cruise tourism is from Kolkata, Dhaka, Guwahati, Neamati (Majuli Island) and Dibrugarh (Protocol Routes 1 & 2).
The IWAI is developing 60 community jetties on NW-1 which will also be utilised for river cruise vessels. There are five dedicated river cruise jetties on NW-2 along Dibrugarh, Neamati, Biswanath Ghat, Pandu and Jogighopa. Another 10 jetties and floating terminals have already been in place on NW-2 to be used by river cruise vessels.
Sonowal further added, the last decade saw higher investment and policy reforms undertaken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And led to sustained revival of our traditional waterways. We have seen a five-fold increase in the cargo on national waterways, from 18.07 million tonne per annum (MTPA) in 2014 to 108.88 MTPA in 2023. The cargo movement on National Waterways is expected to increase by 10 – 12 per cent in FY24.
The cargo movement on National Waterways from April to December 2023 has shown a growth of 9 per cent as compared to the cargo movement for the same period of the previous year. We are progressing well, and I’m confident that we will exceed the Maritime India Vision 2030 target of 200 mt and Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 target of 500 mt of cargo movement through NW.
