Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI)

Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the statutory authority in charge of the waterways in India. It was constituted under IWAI Act 1985, by parliament of India. Its headquarters is located in Noida, UP.

• The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) on February 15, 2019 launched a new portal called ‘LADIS’ – Least Available Depth Information System in New Delhi to ensure optimum use of national waterways. This portal will ensure that the real-time data on least available depths (LADs) is disseminated for ship and barge and cargo owners so that they can undertake transportation on the national waterways in a more planned way.
• The authority has the function of building the necessary infrastructure in these waterways, surveying the economic feasibility of new projects and also administration.
• On 31 August 2018, IWAI made 13 standardized state-of-art designs public for the transportation of cargo and passengers keeping in mind Ganges complex river morphology, hydraulics, acute bends, currents etc. in National Waterway 1 (Allahabad to Haldia).

Conclusion

Increasing investments and cargo traffic indicate towards a healthy outlook for the Indian ports sector. For the better future of shipping sector, Ministry of Shipping has set a target capacity of over 3,130 MMT by 2020, which would be driven by participation from the private sector. Non-major ports are expected to generate over 50 per cent of this capacity. Under the Sagarmala Programme, the government has envisioned a total of 189 projects for modernisation of ports by the year 2035.

• Though, government has taken several steps to increase the traffic of ports like Sagarmala, Jal Marg Vikas Project, National Waterway act etc., there are still large room to improve as only 8 percent of global traffic comes through Indian ports and many major ports have less productivity.