Water Transport
Waterways provide the cheapest-means for transportation of commodities in bulk because there is no fixed cost associated with them. Costly construction of routes is not required.

Inland waterways
India has about 14,500 km of navigable waterways which comprise rivers, canals, backwaters, creeks, etc. However, there is a number of conditionality attached to the river transport, viz:
(a) The rivers must have enough water flowing in them althrough the year;
(b) The rivers must be free from waterfall or rapids;
(c) The rivers must have stabilized courses;
(d) The rivers must not have fluctuating regimes;
(e) The rivers must flow in the right direction; i.e., the direction of dominant trade flows.

Impediments to the Growth of IWT
• Insufficient depths throughout the stretch of navigable waters.
• Excessive siltation in major rivers from erosion of uplands and deforestation.
• Navigation being relegated to the fourth position due to priorities to drinking water, irrigation and power (hydel) sectors that results in reduced draft.
• Non-availability of low draft high technology vessels.
• Non-availability of adequate navigational aids resulting in restricted sailing over long periods of time.
• Non-availability of permanent terminals with adequate infrastructure for loading/unloading, storage etc.
• Non-availability of bulk commodities along the water front.
• Non-availability of return cargo on most of the routes.

Advantages of IWT
• Low capital cost- Cost of development of inland waterway has been estimated to be a mere 5-10 percent of the cost of developing of an equivalent 4-lane highway or railway.
• Low maintenance cost- Cost of maintenance of inland waterway is placed at 20 percent of that of roads.
• Low fuel cost- Inland Water Transport is a highly fuel-efficient mode of transport. This fact is borne out by the estimate that one litre of fuel can move 24 tonnes/km of freight by road, 85 by rail and 105 by IWT.
• Cost-effective transport mode- It has also been estimated that diversion of one billion tonne-km of cargo to the IWT mode will reduce transport fuel costs by 5 million USD and the overall transport costs by 9 million USD.
• Need for Infrastructure building- An analysis of the need for building essential infrastructure like mechanized handling at terminals and night navigation facilities reveals how these can translate into reduction of cost of transportation per tonne-km (TKM) over short haul as well as long haul carriage by IWT. It was observed that the TKM cost of movement would come down from the present Rs.3.55 to Rs.1.44 for a short haul of 100 km and from Rs. 0.95 to 0.39 for a long haul of 2000 km.

Seaports in India
The coastline of India is dotted with 12 Major Ports and about 200 Non-major Ports.
• Kandla – It is a tidal port located at the eastern end of Gulf of Kuchchh.
• Mumbai – It is situated on Salsette Island on the western coast. It is a natural harbour and the largest port of India handling about 1/5th of India’s foreign trade.
• Jawaharlal Nehru port – It has been built at Nhava Sheva Island across the Elephanta caves, about 10 km from Mumbai. Main objective is to relieve the pressure on the Mumbai Port.
• Marmagao – It is a natural port located at the entrance of Zuvari estuary in Goa.
• New Mangalore – Located at the southern tip of Karnataka coast, north of Gurpur River.
• Kochi – A natural harbour on the western coast of Kerala (in Vembanad Lake).
• Tuticorin – It is an artificial deep sea harbour in Tamil Nadu, north of Adam Bridge and east of Sri Lanka.
• Chennai – It is the oldest artificial port on the eastern coast of India.
• Ennore: Recently developed to reduce pressure of traffic on Chennai port. It is located slightly north of Chennai on T.N. coast. It is country’s first corporate port.
• Vishakhapatnam – It is the deepest land-locked and protected port at the coast of Andhra Pradesh.
• Paradeep – It is a deep-water & all weather port on Orissa coast in Mahanadi delta region.
• Kolkata-Haldia – It is a river rine port located on the west bank of the Hooghly River.

New initiatives
A. Sagarmala project
• Sagarmala will lead to large scale employment generation of skilled and semi-skilled manpower. Industrial clusters and parks, large ports, maritime services, logistics services, and other sectors of the economy will be directly and indirectly impacted by port-led development under Sagarmala.
• It will result in sustainable development of the population living in the Coastal Economic Zones (CEZ) by synergising and coordinating with State Governments and line Ministries of Central Government through their existing schemes and programmes such as those related to community and rural development, tribal development and employment generation, fisheries, skill development, tourism promotion etc. Today about 70 lakhs persons are dependent on fisheries for their livelihood.

B. Jal Marg Vikas Project
• The Project’s objective is to provide an environment friendly, fuel efficient and cost-effective alternative mode of transportation, especially for bulk goods, hazardous goods, captive cargo and over dimensional cargo.
• The projects include construction of terminals, jetties, river training and conservancy works, modern automated information system, navigation aids, etc.

Issues in sea transport
• Most major ports were originally designed to handle specific categories of cargo which have declined in time while other types of cargoes gained importance. The ports have not been able to adjust to the categories of cargo which grew the most. There are thus several berths for traditional cargo, which are under-utilised, and only a few for new cargo, which are overutilised.
• Equipment utilisation is very poor both because equipment is obsolete and poorly maintained.
• Over staffing at Indian ports remains rampant and productivity indicators in respect of cargo and equipment handling continue to be poor.
• Documentary procedures relating to cargo handling such as customs clearance requirements are unduly complicated and time consuming. Electronic document processing is still to be introduced in all the ports.
• Port access facilities and arrangements for moving in-bound and out-bound cargo are inadequate and unsatisfactory.
• Absence of inter-port and intra-port competition which have been conductive to substantial productivity increases in other countries is absent in Indian due to poor inland connectivity and a policy regime that protected domestic ports against competitive pressures.