Being surrounded by the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, the nautical situation of India can be deemed as quite favorable. The extensive coastline that stretches for more than 7000 km, has led to the establishment of a wide network of inland waterways and ports in the country. These waterways of India come under the purview of the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) and include various rivers, rivulets, canals and the backwaters.
As of now, India has three national waterways, viz Allahabad Haldia stretch of the Ganga Bhagirathi Hooghly River, Sadiya Dhubri stretch of the Brahmaputra River and Kollam Kottapuram stretch of West Coast Canal, along with Champakara Canal and Udyogmandal. However, the navigable zone stretches for only 14,500 km and sees a lot of inland traffic. There are 12 important ports that form a part of the Maritime transport of India.
These include Calcutta, Haldia, Paradip, Visakhapatanam, Ennore, Chennai, Tuticorin, Cochin, New Mangalore, Mormugao, JNPT, Mumbai and Kandla. Apart from these major docks, there are also 180 smaller ports in the country. The major ports are managed by port trusts, regulated by the central government, and come under the jurisdiction of the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963. The minor ports, on the other hand, are maintained by the respective state governments and most of them are private bodies or captive ports.
These ports of India not only provide maritime transportation services, but are equally important from the tourism point of view. They serve a lot of domestic and foreign tourists every year and handle approximately 90-95% (by quantity) and 77% (by value) of the trade of the country. As recorded in 2003-04, the total amount of water traffic managed at the major ports was about 345 Mt whereas the minor ports recorded about 115 Mt of water traffic.
However, when we look at the overall freight transportation by waterways in India, it is very less. The total freight moved (in tonne km) by these inland waterways is just 0.1% of the total inland traffic in the country. Moreover, controlled cargo transportation in India is limited only to a few waterways like Goa, West Bengal, Assam and Kerala. Nevertheless, efforts are being taken to improve this aspect of water transport too.
