On 6th January 2025, MV Trishul reached Pandu in Guwahati with two barges, Ajay and Dikhu, in tow. Together, they had carried 1,500 tonnes of cement from Kolkata. The consignment did not travel by road but by river, using the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Route before entering the Brahmaputra and reaching Assam. It was the maiden scheduled cargo service completed under the government’s Jalvahak initiative.
The service was part of a much larger attempt to put water back on India’s freight map. Scheduled sailings were introduced between Kolkata, Patna and Varanasi on National Waterway-1, while another service connected Kolkata with Pandu on National Waterway-2 through Bangladesh. When the scheme was launched in December 2024, one vessel left for Assam with 1,500 tonnes of cement, another carried 1,000 tonnes of gypsum towards Patna and a third carried 200 tonnes of coal to Varanasi.
By itself, one shipment may not be big news per se. However, what made it significant is what has happened across India’s inland waterways over the past decade. Cargo carried on National Waterways stood at just 18.07 million metric tonnes, or MMT, in 2013-14. It reached 145.84 MMT in 2024-25. In 2025-26, the figure shot up to 218.24 MMT. In other words, cargo movement on National Waterways is now more than 12 times what it was in 2013-14.
The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways now says India has already crossed the 200 MMT cargo target envisaged under Maritime India Vision 2030. The longer-term goal under Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 is to take inland-waterway traffic beyond 500 MMT and raise its share in freight movement from around 2% to 5%.
India’s rivers have not suddenly become substitutes for its highways and railway tracks. Nor is that the objective. What is emerging instead is a third freight network, one that can connect mines, factories, ports and inland markets with roads and railways rather than compete with them at every point.
The interesting part of these developments is that India has travelled this road before.
The idea of moving heavy cargo through rivers is not new to India. It is actually much older than the modern railway system. According to the historical study conducted by the Ministry of Shipping, numerous Indian trading towns developed along navigable waterways long before railways became a leading choice for freight movement. Mechanised river navigation began as early as 1823, when a propelled craft named Diana sailed about 80 kilometres on the Hooghly to Calcutta.
By 1834, a regular monthly steamer service operated between Calcutta and stations upstream on the Ganga. A fortnightly Calcutta-Agra service using the river system followed in 1842. By 1863, regular steam navigation connected Calcutta with Assam.
The scale of the movement was remarkable for that time. At the peak of country-boat traffic in 1876-77, the records cited by the Ministry stated that around 1,80,000 cargo boats were registered at Calcutta, 1,24,000 at Hooghly and around 62,000 at Patna. Country boats carried goods over a network stretching from the Delhi and Nepal-border regions towards Assam.
However, the transport map soon changed as the expansion of the railway network created new centres of economic activity away from rivers. In the beginning, railways and waterways supplemented each other. Rivers were used to feed cargo into railway lines. However, gradually, railways became the dominant long-distance transport network and inland navigation declined.
The growing East India Railway network began changing freight patterns around 1860. In a note describing the modern Ganga waterway project, the World Bank suggests that the Ganga remained a busy commercial waterway until roughly a century ago, before the rise of rail transport pushed river freight into the background.
Interestingly, the possibility of reviving river transport was being discussed almost immediately after Independence. On 24th June 1949, then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote a note supporting the development of navigation on the Ganga and Ghaghra. He argued that passenger and freight traffic would continue to grow and that India should not remain dependent on railways alone. He even pointed out that navigation had once extended along the Ganga up to Allahabad.
It can be said that the idea of waterways as a mode of transport was never forgotten. However, India did not act to revive it on a massive scale until recently under the Modi government.
The Inland Waterways Authority of India, or IWAI, was created under the Inland Waterways Authority of India Act, 1985, and became operational in 1986. Its task includes developing and regulating National Waterways for shipping and navigation. However, it took the Indian government almost three decades to bring about a major policy expansion.
The National Waterways Act, 2016, which came into effect on 12th April 2016, added 106 new National Waterways to the five that already existed, taking the total to 111.
The 111 declared waterways together cover about 20,187 kilometres and stretch across 23 states and four Union Territories, according to the latest Ministry data.
However, declaring a National Waterway is only the first step. Rivers are not constant across their paths. They differ significantly in terms of depth, geography, surrounding industries and commercial potential. Therefore, the government followed a phased approach by developing waterways based on feasibility and their suitability for cargo, passenger transport or tourism.
As of August 2026, 32 National Waterways covering 5,155 navigable kilometres are operational. In a statement, the government stated that its focus is first on developing already declared waterways found feasible for cargo and passenger transport before adding any new corridors.
It is essential to understand the 111-waterway figure. India is not trying to turn every listed river into an identical cargo route. A river beside an industrial cluster may develop as a freight corridor. Another may have greater value for passenger ferries or cruise tourism. Some segments may require far more infrastructure than others before regular commercial navigation becomes viable. The network is being built according to what individual waterways can realistically support.
At first glance, river transport may sound simple. Put cargo on a barge and sail it downstream. However, the reality is far more complicated. A river does not behave like a road. When it comes to roads, they have a largely fixed route and surface. On the other hand, a natural river can deepen in one stretch, become shallow in another, split around sandbars and shift its navigable channel with changing water levels. In short, rivers are not as predictable as roads.
This is where Least Available Depth, or LAD, becomes important. In simple terms, a cargo vessel needs enough water beneath it to sail safely. A river can be wide and still be too shallow at a particular point for a loaded barge.
To maintain navigation, IWAI carries out work including river training, maintenance dredging, channel marking and hydrographic surveys. Depending on the waterway and stretch, navigational channels are developed with widths of around 35 or 45 metres and targeted depths ranging from around 2 metres to 3 metres.
And this is not the only thing that needs to be considered. Cargo has to be loaded and unloaded, which requires terminals or jetties. The captain needs to know the navigable channel. This requires channel marking and surveys. Night navigation is another challenge and it requires navigation aids. Vessel operators need information about river conditions consistently, as rivers change their behaviour quickly. Freight arriving by water needs connections to roads, railways, factories, ports and warehouses.
In other words, India is not merely reopening rivers. It is building a logistics system around them, and no project demonstrates this better than the Ganga.
National Waterway-1 covers the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system from Haldia to Prayagraj, a distance of about 1,620 kilometres through West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The centrepiece is the Jal Marg Vikas Project, or JMVP, covering the approximately 1,390-km Haldia-Varanasi section. It was designed to increase the capacity and reliability of NW-1 and integrate river transport with roads and railway freight corridors.
According to the Economic Survey 2025-26, JMVP is an approximately Rs 4,600 crore project with operational multimodal terminals at Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia, along with the operational intermodal terminal at Kalughat. Each location has a different role.
The multimodal terminal at Varanasi, constructed at Ramnagar, has a capacity of 1.26 million tonnes per annum. It is connected to the national highway network, while rail connectivity from the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor has also been planned.
At Sahibganj in Jharkhand, a terminal with a capacity of 3.03 million tonnes per annum provides an important waterway interface for the mineral and industrial hinterland.
The Haldia multimodal terminal has a capacity of 3.08 million tonnes per annum and sits within the wider Kolkata-Haldia port ecosystem.
The Kalughat intermodal terminal in Bihar adds another connection between river freight and the road network.
There is another less visible piece of infrastructure at Farakka. The barrage is a critical point on the Ganga system. To make vessel passage smoother, a new navigational lock has been constructed there and was inaugurated in October 2023.
Along NW-1, floating terminals and community jetties have also been developed, while systems for channel marking, day and night navigation and river information form the less visible digital and navigational backbone of the corridor.
The Economic Survey noted that by November 2025, 53 community jetties under the Arth Ganga initiative were operational, alongside the major freight infrastructure. The idea is not to remain dependent on larger vessels. Smaller jetties can also connect communities, local produce, passengers and smaller economic activities along the river.
According to the Economic Survey, in 2014-15, National Waterway-1 handled 5.05 MMT of cargo. By 2024-25, this had reached 16.38 MMT. The next financial year brought a much larger jump. According to figures placed before the Rajya Sabha on 28th July 2026, cargo on NW-1 rose to 84.78 MMT in 2025-26.
The same official table records 10.93 MMT in 2021-22, 13.17 MMT in 2022-23, 12.82 MMT in 2023-24, 16.38 MMT in 2024-25 and 84.78 MMT in 2025-26. That made NW-1 India’s largest National Waterway by cargo volume in 2025-26.
More importantly, it shows how dramatically the role of the Ganga system has changed. In 2017, the World Bank noted that the Ganga system carried only a tiny proportion of the enormous freight generated by the Gangetic region, and since then, the Gangetic region has become a major component of the country’s inland-waterway traffic.
The latest increase on NW-1 was also the largest contributor to the national jump from 145.84 MMT in 2024-25 to 218.24 MMT in 2025-26. This is an important marker of how the investment in the Ganga corridor is beginning to translate into much larger recorded cargo volumes.
At the same time, the national figures show another important feature of India’s waterway revival. Different rivers are succeeding for different reasons.
India’s freight waterways do not all look like the Ganga
In 2025-26, the largest cargo volumes were recorded on four waterways:
Together, these four carried about 85% of all cargo recorded on National Waterways during the year. Other notable figures included 6.36 MMT on the Sundarbans Waterway, 5.71 MMT on NW-4, 5.13 MMT on the Mandovi and 4.04 MMT on the West Coast Canal.
The Ganga is a long river corridor designed to connect inland markets with eastern ports. Maharashtra’s Amba and Shastri-Jaigad systems, Gujarat’s Tapi and Goa’s waterways operate in very different geographical and industrial environments. Several have strong links with ports, mines and bulk-cargo industries.
Rather than one standard model being imposed everywhere, India’s inland-waterway system is developing around the economic strengths of individual corridors.
Maharashtra’s National Waterways alone handled 66.02 MMT in 2025-26, according to the Rajya Sabha data. Gujarat’s waterways handled 34.81 MMT, almost all of it on the Tapi. Goa’s Mandovi and Zuari together handled 6.70 MMT.
These western waterways are important precisely because they demonstrate one of the strongest use cases for inland navigation. If a mine, factory or industrial cluster lies near navigable water that also connects efficiently with a port, a large quantity of bulk cargo can move without requiring an entirely new land corridor.
The Ganga model is different. There, India is creating multimodal terminals, logistics parks, rail links and cargo-aggregation points so that a much larger inland economic region can access the waterway. Both models add to the same national freight network.
In 2024-25, coal accounted for around 27% of cargo moved on National Waterways. Iron ore fines accounted for around 18%, iron ore 9%, sand 8% and fly ash 6%. Limestone, cement, clinker and other commodities made up the remaining broad category shown in the government’s cargo composition data. Coal, iron ore, iron ore fines, sand and fly ash together constituted more than 68% of cargo movement during the year.
A tonne of coal does not need to reach its destination with the speed expected from high-value electronics or perishable express cargo. Steel, cement, coal, ore, fly ash and similar commodities are heavy, move in large quantities and can be carried in bulk. Waterways are particularly suited to such freight.
But India is also experimenting with more diverse cargo. In November 2018, the first containerised cargo movement on NW-1 carried PepsiCo containers to Varanasi. In 2019, a vessel carrying 53 TEUs of petrochemicals, edible oil and beverages was sent from Haldia to Pandu through NW-1, the Sundarbans, the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Route and NW-2.
More recently, the cargo being moved to Assam has included material for major industrial projects. In February 2026, IWAI facilitated the movement of a 189.260-tonne over-dimensional consignment for Tata’s semiconductor assembly facility in Assam. The cargo travelled from Diamond Harbour through the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Route and NW-2.
A month later, around 1,500 tonnes of granulated blast furnace slag and TMT bars, shipped by Tata Steel for Larsen & Toubro, reached Pandu from Kolkata through the same broad inland-waterway connection.
These movements show how the system can serve not only conventional bulk commodities but also specialised industrial cargo that can be difficult or expensive to move entirely by road.
If NW-1 is the flagship commercial experiment, National Waterway-2 on the Brahmaputra carries another kind of importance. NW-2 extends for around 891 kilometres from Dhubri to Sadiya in Assam.
The Northeast is connected with the rest of India by land through the narrow Siliguri Corridor. Inland waterways provide another logistics axis, particularly because Indian vessels can use specified routes through Bangladesh under the Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade.
IWAI itself describes NW-2 as the most important National Waterway in the Northeast and notes that its connection through the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Route can reduce pressure on the Siliguri Corridor.
Pandu is especially important because it functions as a multimodal terminal and has broad-gauge railway connectivity. Permanent jetties are available at Pandu and Dhubri, while floating facilities exist at multiple points along the Brahmaputra.
The Indo-Bangladesh Protocol system allows vessels from each country to transit designated routes in the other. Indian ports of call under the arrangement include Kolkata, Haldia, Dhubri, Pandu, Silghat, Karimganj and Jogighopa, among others.
This creates a remarkable possibility. Cargo from eastern Indian ports can travel through Bangladesh’s river system and enter the Brahmaputra, providing Assam and other parts of the Northeast with an additional freight connection to mainland India.
The 1,500-tonne cement shipment that reached Pandu in January 2025 was an example of exactly this route in operation.
NW-2 handled 1.29 MMT of cargo in 2025-26, compared with 0.90 MMT in 2024-25. Its volume remains much smaller than that of the Ganga or the industrial waterways of western India, but its strategic value goes beyond tonnage alone because it expands the number of ways heavy cargo can reach the Northeast.
The development is also continuing. The government has been improving terminals, fairways and connectivity across the northeastern waterways, while scheduled services are intended to create greater predictability for cargo owners.
The simplest way to understand the rise of inland waterways is to count tonnes. On that measure, the growth is unmistakable. The numbers jumped from 18.07 MMT in 2013-14 to 218.24 MMT in 2025-26. But freight can also be measured through tonne-kilometres.
One tonne carried for one kilometre equals one tonne-kilometre. If a tonne travels 500 kilometres, it performs 500 tonne-kilometres of freight movement. This measurement does not replace cargo tonnage. It complements it.
That becomes useful because India’s National Waterways perform very different jobs. A short industrial river linking a plant to a nearby port and a vessel travelling hundreds of kilometres on the Ganga are both valuable, but they represent different types of freight movement.
As the inland-waterway system expands, looking at cargo volume, distance, tonne-kilometres and modal share together can provide a fuller picture of how deeply water transport is becoming integrated into Indian logistics.
The government’s own policy targets already reflect this wider approach. Maritime India Vision and Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision do not focus only on absolute cargo. They also seek to increase inland waterways’ share in the overall freight mix.
In the Union Budget 2026-27, the government announced the development of National Waterway-5 in Odisha to connect the mineral-rich Talcher and Angul regions and industrial centres such as Kalinga Nagar with the ports of Paradip and Dhamra.
Odisha has major coal, mineral and steel-producing regions as well as large ports on the east coast. A waterway connecting those cargo-generating centres with Paradip and Dhamra could provide another route for moving heavy bulk commodities.
The Ministry’s current plan prioritises a 332-km stretch of NW-5 connecting the industrial and mineral hinterland with the ports. The proposed corridor is designed around a 3-metre Least Available Depth for vessels of around 2,000 DWT and is expected to handle commodities such as thermal coal, iron ore, steel and coking coal.
In many ways, NW-5 represents the next logical step in the policy. The western waterways have demonstrated what happens when industries, ports and navigable water already exist close to each other. The Ganga project demonstrates how infrastructure can be built to create a large multimodal corridor across the hinterland.
Odisha offers the opportunity to connect a major mineral and industrial belt directly with maritime gateways through inland water.
For decades, the modern Indian freight story was overwhelmingly a story of railway wagons, trucks and ports. Rivers remained geographically enormous but economically underused as transport corridors. However, that picture is now changing, which is visible not just in the number of waterways but also in physical infrastructure on the ground and cargo on the water.
India now has 111 declared National Waterways covering more than 20,000 km. Thirty-two are operational over 5,155 navigable kilometres. The Ganga has multimodal terminals at Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia. The Brahmaputra is connected with eastern India through Bangladesh. Industrial waterways in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa are already carrying tens of millions of tonnes. Odisha is being prepared for the next major push.
The cargo figure brings the transformation into perspective. 18.07 MMT in 2013-14 became 218.24 MMT in 2025-26. The government’s 200-MMT target under Maritime India Vision 2030 has consequently been crossed several years ahead of 2030.
That does not mean every river will eventually carry millions of tonnes of freight, nor does it need to. Geography, water depth, industrial activity, ports and local demand will determine which waterways become major cargo corridors and which serve other purposes.
The larger achievement is that water has returned as a serious option in India’s transport planning. More than a century after railways began displacing India’s river trade, barges are once again carrying cement, coal, steel, minerals, containers and even specialised industrial equipment through the country’s rivers.
The question is no longer whether India can move freight through its waterways. It already is, and at a scale considerably larger than a decade ago.
Now the next question is: can waterways make Indian freight cheaper, reduce pressure on roads and railways, cut fuel use and emissions, and become a routine commercial choice for companies moving goods across the country? All this will be discussed in the next part of the series.
Lower per-tonne freight costs, sharply lower fuel use, multimodal terminals, Jalvahak incentives and private investment are shaping a system in which heavy cargo can move by river for the longest, most efficient leg of journeys.
Ask who owns a stretch of national highway, or an embankment, or the tunnel wall at Silkyara. The honest answer is often several departments, none of whom will admit it first. A road, a bridge, a drainage channel should each belong to one named office, the kind that gets credit when it holds and blame when it doesn’t.
India’s goal now should not be just to become a ‘Builder’s Navy’, but a ‘Fast Builder’s Navy’. This means freezing designs, placing large orders together and never letting shipyard assembly lines sit empty.
Selected issues, clear explanations and thoughtful perspectives—delivered when we publish.
