If executed well, waterways can change inland transportation

On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi minister of state for shipping, Mansukh L Madaviya, said: “As per RITES Report of 2014 on ‘Integrated National Waterways Transportation Grid’, one litre of fuel moves 24 tonnes km by road, 95 tonnes km on rail and 215 tonnes km on Inland Water Transport.”

Third, ferrying goods via waterways is faster than on congested road and rail networks, which slows the movement of cargo, adding to uncertainties, and increasing the costs of trade. Logistics costs in India, says the World Bank, are estimated to account for as much as 18% of the country’s GDP. Fourth is the pollution cost of traffic bottlenecks. According to a 2014 study by the Central Road Research Institute, eight major traffic bottlenecks in Delhi guzzle at least 40,000 kilolitres of fuel (diesel, petrol, and CNG) every day. Add to this, carbon dioxide (CO2) that is added to the polluted air daily by these vehicles.

While there are several positives of the waterways project, any infrastructure development will have environmental costs, and those must be taken into account while evaluating the benefits of the project. This is because while the main infrastructure — the waterway — is naturally available in this case, it needs to be “trained, maintained and upgraded” to ensure that the movement of cargo carriers is possible. One important aspect of this “training” a waterway is dredging, which is required to ensure that the required water depth is maintained everywhere for the goods carriers to pass.

Environment activists allege that the Environmental Impact Assessment report prepared by Inland Waterways Authority of India ignores the severe impact of the movement of ships and dredging on biodiversity in critical but legally non protected stretches of the river. These are genuine concerns. The ecosystem services that the river provides must be quantified for a wholesome evaluation of the mega project’s actual economic worth.