A body of water, such as a river, canal or lake, is navigable if it is deep, wide and calm enough for a water vessel to pass safely. Navigability is also referred to in the broader context of a body of water having sufficient under keel clearance for a vessel.
The Barak River flows 900 kilometres (560 mi) through the states of Manipur, Mizoram and Assam in India. It flows into Bangladesh where it bifurcates into the Surma river and the Kushiyara river which converge again to become the Meghna river before forming the Ganges Delta. Of its total length, 524 km (326 mi) is in India, 31 km (19 mi) in Bangladesh. The upper part of its navigable part is in India — 121 km (75 mi) between Lakhipur and Bhanga, declared as National Waterway 6, (NW-6) since the year 2016. It drains a basin of 52,000 km2 (20,000 sq mi), of which 41,723 km2 (16,109 sq mi) lies in India, 1.38% (rounded) of the country. The water and banks host or are visited by a wide variety of flora and fauna.
The economy of West Bengal is a mixed middle-income developing social market economy and the largest Eastern Indian economy with a substantial public sector. It is the India's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP.
The West Coast Canal or National Waterway No 3 is a 205 km (127 mi) long inland navigational route located in Kerala, India, which runs from Kollam to Kottapuram. It was declared a National Waterway in 1993. In addition to the main stretch, Champakara and Udyogmandal canals are navigable and connect the industrial centers of Kochi to Kochi port Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) under the Ministry of Shipping is coordinating the task for developing, monitoring and administering national waterways. It is the first National Waterway in the country with 24-hour navigation facilities along the entire stretch. It has been extended to Kozhikode by the National Waterways Act, 2016. The National Waterway 3 mainly passes through the previous Thiruvananthapuram–Shoranur canal.
Prayagraj Bypass Expressway is an 84.708 km (52.635 mi) Controlled-access expressway located in the district of Prayagraj. It is the Asia's longest bypass in terms of length. The project is a section of National Highway 19. It forms the part of the Golden Quadrilateral, under the Kanpur-Prayagraj-Varanasi section of Delhi-Kolkata stretch. The primary purpose of construction was to reduce heavy traffic on the Grand Trunk Road through the city of Prayagraj.
National Waterway 4 (NW-4) is a 1,095 kilometres (680 mi) long waterway in India. It has been declared as an Indian National Waterway and is currently under development. It connects the Indian states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and the union territory of Puducherry. The NW-4 runs along the Coromandal Coast through Kakinada, Eluru, Commanur, Buckingham Canals and also through part of Krishna and Godavari rivers in South India. It was declared a National Waterway on 24 November 2008 under the Provisions of National Waterways Bill, 2006. It is being developed by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), and was scheduled for completion by 2013. The National Waterways Act, 2016 has extended the length of NW-4 from 1,095 km (680 mi) to 2,890 km (1,800 mi) by connecting the Krishna and Godavari Rivers. The Project would be undertaken in 3 phases with first phase beginning in October, 2017 and to be completed by June, 2019
The National Waterway 1 (NW-1) or Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system is located in India and runs from Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh to Haldia in West Bengal via Patna and Bhagalpur in Bihar across the Ganges river. It is 1,620 km (1,010 mi) long, making it the longest waterway in India. It is of prime importance amongst all the national waterways considering its locational advantages. The NW-1 passes through West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and serves major cities and their industrial hinterlands like;
National Waterway 2 (NW-2) is a section of the Brahmaputra River having a length of 891 km between the Bangladesh border near Dhubri and Sadiya in Assam.
National Waterway 5 (NW-5) is one of six National Waterways in India and it covers the state of Odisha and a part of West Bengal. It runs a total length of 623 km of which 91 km is within West Bengal and the remaining 532 km is in Odisha. It was declared a National Waterway in November 2008. The NW-5 consists of the stretches from Talcher to Dhamra on the Brahmani River a distance of 265 km including the Kharsua and Dhamra river systems, the Geonkhali–Charbatia stretch of the East Coast Canal of 217 km, the Charbatia–Dhamra stretch of Matai River of 40 km and the Mangalgadi–Paradip stretch of the Mahanadi River Delta running for 101 km. The waterway also includes a 91 km stretch in Bengal between Geonkhali and Nasirabad, West Bengal.
National Waterways 6 is a waterway between Lakhipur and Bhanga of the Barak River.
Kollam Canal or Quilon Canal or Kollam Thodu is a 7.7 km long canal system passing through the city of Kollam, India. It is a part of National Waterway-3 and 78 km long Kollam-Trivandrum (Kovalam) State waterway project.
The Bharatmala Pariyojna is an ongoing project that will interconnect 550 District Headquarters through a minimum 4-lane highway by raising the number of corridors to 50 and move 80% freight traffic to National Highways by interconnecting 24 logistics parks, 66 inter-corridors (IC) of total 8,000 km (5,000 mi), 116 feeder routes (FR) of total 7,500 km (4,700 mi) and 7 north east Multi-Modal waterway ports. The project also includes development of tunnels, bridges, elevated corridors, flyovers, overpass, interchanges, bypasses, ring roads etc. to provide shortest, jam free & optimized connectivity to multiple places, it is a centrally-sponsored and funded Road and Highways project of the Government of India. This ambitious umbrella programme will subsume all existing Highway Projects including the flagship National Highways Development Project (NHDP), launched by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998. Bharatmala is mainly focused on connecting remote areas and satellite cities of megacities such as Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad etc. The total investment for 83,677 km (51,994 mi) committed new highways is estimated at ₹10.63 lakh crore (US$130 billion), making it the single largest outlay for a government road construction scheme. The project will build highways from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and then cover the entire string of Himalayan territories - Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand - and then portions of borders of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar alongside Terai, and move to West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and right up to the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipur and Mizoram. Special emphasis will be given on providing connectivity to far-flung border and rural areas including the tribal and backward areas.
Haldia Port, officially Haldia Dock Complex (HDC), is a port on the river bank of the confluence of the Haldi River and the Hooghly River. The port is located on the west bank of the Hooghly River at Haldia in West Bengal, about 121 km from the deep sea (sandheads), 45 kilometres (28 mi) upstream from Pilotage Station and 104 km downstream of Kolkata. It developed in independent India in the 1960s, and officially began operations in 1977 as an associate port of the Port of Kolkata. The dock system of the port consists of a lock and riverside jetties. Haldia port mainly handles fully loaded Handy size –carriers of 28,000–40,000 DWT–vessels; but the port has a maximum draft depth of 9 metres (30 ft) and can accommodate Panamax vessels up to 230 metres (750 ft) long with 40-50-percent cargo parcels.
The Haldia Multi-Modal Terminal is a barge terminal in Port City Haldia in East Midnapore district of West Bengal and a small barrier set for small ships. The terminal is built near the Haldia Port. The terminal will be built as a river port with 61 acres of land. The terminal is built by Inland Waterways Authority of India by help of West Bengal and the Calcutta Port Trust.
Varanasi Multi-Modal Terminal or Varanasi Port is an Inland river port situated in the city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. The port is located on the Ganges river. This port is built under the government's Jal Marg Vikas project. The port has provided a direct link with the Port of Kolkata and Haldia Port.
Pandu Port is a river port in the Indian state of Assam, serving Guwahati. This port has been developed on the bank of the Brahmaputra river. The port is the most important and the largest river port in Assam state. Many passenger ships at the port are anchored with the tourists. However, the state government has now allocated funds for the modernization of the port for national waterway development projects. In order to arrange a ship anchorage, a naval terminal or permanent jetty has been formed. The Port is included in the port of call agreement between India and Bangladesh.
Water transport in India has played a significant role in the country's economy and is indispensable to foreign trade. India is endowed with an extensive network of waterways in the form of rivers, canals, backwaters, creeks and a long coastline accessible through the seas and oceans. It has the largest carrying capacity of any form of transport and is most suitable for carrying bulky goods over long distances.
Waterways have always been an important mode of transport in Kerala. The total length of navigable route in Kerala was 1,900 kilometres and the navigable rivers constitute about 54 per cent of the waterways. The 41 West-flowing rivers together with the backwaters are an integrated part of the inland navigation system in Kerala. In Kerala water transportation through these channels are mainly small distant passenger services, informal country boats, freight transportation to PSU's such as Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore, Kochi etc.
