The newly constituted Inland Water Transport Development Council (IWTDC) has resolved to give thrust to the development of inland water transport (IWT) in the country during the Tenth Plan period and has called for coordinated action between the Centre and state governments for faster development of the energy-efficient sector.
The council has called upon states to formulate their own IWT policies, with emphasis on working out mechanisms for implementing joint venture projects and also firm up plans to involve village panchayats wherever possible for developing waterways.
States have been asked to prepare a status paper on the present position of waterways in their respective areas. Following this, a master plan for development of waterway networks would be evolved, according to officials.
Village panchayats need to be empowered and funds earmarked under various national programmes for development of waterways, officials said.
The first meeting of the Council which took place here under the chairmanship of union minister for shipping, law justice and company affairs, Arun Jaitley.
The multi-member IWTDC, comprising the chairman, the minister of state for shipping, ministers in charge of inland water transport from 14 states, secretary (shipping), chairman of the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), three experts including a private sector representative as Members and the joint secretary -IWT in the ministry of shipping, attended the meeting here on Saturday.
Among other decisions, the central subsidy facility would be extended to waterways other than national waterways and a coordination mechanism involving state representatives and the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) would be initiated for better implementation of waterway projects.
The meeting took note of the proposed development strategy for new national waterways, other than the three existing waterways. Thrust would also be placed on projects linking inland waterways with the country's ports so that cargo emanating from the hinterland can be moved directly to the ports through waterways, with out diversion to roads.
India has an extensive network of waterways, which covers over 14,5000 km, but only around 20 per cent of it has been covered by the existing three national waterways. The current share of IWT is about 1.5 billion tonne km, which is insignificant compared to the total inland cargo of over 1,000 billion tonne km.
To raise IWTs share, higher investment of fairway development, provision of terminals, aids for round-the-clock navigation and fleet are required.
Cost of transportation between water, rail and road is in the ratio of 1:2:5 while energy consumption is in the ratio 1:1.5:4, thereby the crying need for development of waterways. Increased budgetary support and private sector participation are the key for developing this mode and for this, the Ministry of shipping has implemented a new Inland Water Transport Policy to encourage large-scale private participation, both for creation of infrastructure and for fleet operations.
The new policy provides major opportunities for private sector to make investments in construction and operations of vessels and terminals, storage, loading and unloading facilities, mechanized cargo handling systems, fairway development including dredging, provision of navigational aids and pilotage services. The private investors will be allowed to fix their own charges to be levied from users for the services, even though IWAI will have the option of regulating tariffs.
Under the Policy, it has been decided to enlarge the role of IWAI to enter into commercial or joint ventures with the private sector to encourage investments and an in-principle approval has been given for private sector participation.
Equity participation of the government would be limited to a ceiling of 40 per cent for BOT projects. IWAI has also been authorized to raise bonds to mobilize funds.
Budget 2001-02 saw an enhancement in depreciation rate for inland vessels to 25 per cent, bringing it at par with ocean going vessels. Tax exemptions similar to national highways and a scheme for providing vessel-building subsidy of 30 per cent for ship owners building inland vessels in Indian shipyards. An in-principle approval has also been granted for levying minimum customs duty on imported equipment and machinery for development of inland waterways.
Three waterways-ganga, Brahmaputra and west coast Canal- have been declared as National waterways and on many other waterways, techno-economic feasibility studies have been conducted.
