IWAI lowers cargo handling target

The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has lowered the cargo handling target to 100 million tonne (MT) on national waterways by 2021-22, as against its earlier estimation of 150 MT. An official stated “According to the latest projection, traffic on national waterways is expected to increase from 72 MT in 2018 -19 to 100 MT by FY22.” He also added that traffic on national waterway one (NW-1), (- the Haldia-Varanasi stretch on the Ganga) grew from 5.48 MT in 2017-18 to 6.79 MT in 2018-19.

“So much had been done by the government for development of national waterways. But, banks are still not forthcoming about financing assets like vessels for deployment on these waterways, saying that it is non-viable,” a city based logistics operator PDP Group chairman Pramod Srivastava had said recently.