The Centre on Wednesday devised a river information system (RIS) similar to air traffic control to keep vigil on waterway traffic on the pattern done in Europe and other developed countries, which use water ways as one of their significant and cheap modes of transportation.
Inaugurating the first ever RIS for 145-km stretch of National Waterways 1 (phase 1 — Haldia to Farakka) on the Ganga here, Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari said it will monitor and track the movement of ships, and its role for waterways will be like an ATC.
“We are going to tap waterways in a much bigger way. The new system, first of its kind in the country, will facilitate safe and accurate navigation on waterways and in turn boost imports and exports,” Gadkari said.
RIS is a combination of modern tracking equipment related hardware and software designed to optimise traffic and transport processes in inland navigation. The system improves swift electronic data transfer between mobile vessels and shore (base stations) through advance and real-time exchange of information.
RIS aims to streamline the exchange of information between waterway operators and users. India has so far declared five river stretches as National Waterways. RIS is being implemented under the overall responsibility of the Inland Waterway Authority of India, a statutory body administered by the Ministry of Shipping.
The Minister said Phase-II of the system from Farakka to Patna and Phase-III from Patna to Varanasi will also be implemented on priority basis as efforts are on to develop the Ganga as a waterway. He likened the installation of an efficient and effective RIS on the Sagar-Farakka stretch to the existing facilities in countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, China and the US. As part of this project, vessels are being monitored by installing seven remote (base station sites) at Haldia, Garden Reach (GR) Jetty, Tribeni, Swaroopganj, Kumarpur, Ballia and Farakka at a cost of `26.23 crore.
There will be two control centres at Farakka and GR Jetty, which will monitor vessels through an automatic identification system (AIS) and communicate via VHF. Gadkari said he is hopeful of securing Parliament nod on the Bill to convert 111 rivers across the country into National Waterways in the next Session as the lok Sabha already passed it in the last Session.