New Delhi, Dec 21 (Agency) The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW) on Monday said that it has identified the domestic locations namely Hazira, Okha, Somnath Temple, DIU, PIPAVAV, Dahej, Mumbai/JNPT, Jamnagar, Kochi, Ghogha, Goa, Mundra and Mandvi and six International routes, connecting four international destinations namely Chattogram in Bangladesh, Seychelles and Madagasca in East Africa and Jaffna in Sri Lanka from Indian major coastal port towns for the commencement of ferry services through inland waterways.
The Ministry has recently successfully implemented one of such ferry routes by deploying RoPAX vessel ferry service between Hazira and Ghogha which has reduced the distance between Ghogha and Hazira from 370 Km to 90 Km and travel time from 10 to 12 hours to about five hours. This will result in huge savings of fuel around 9000 litres per day. Following the same model, the Shipping Ministry now encourages the private operator to identify the routes, which offers potential to commence the RO-RO, RO-PAX ferry service based on the localized demand to promote the supplementary and sustainable mode of the transportation through coastal or inland water. This will also create a supplementary mode of transportation, which will not only be beneficial for the daily commuters, tourists’ movement and cargo transportation but also helpful in reducing carbon footprint by shifting to environment-friendly mode of transportation from rail and road.
This will provide impetus to the tourism industry and will create job opportunities in the coastal regions whereas the usurer will save time and money along with the de-congesting the road and rail networks. The Ministry has been working continuously for the promotion of Coastal Shipping under Sagarmala Programme, a flagship programme of the Ministry to promote port-led development in the country through harnessing India’s 7,500 Km long coastline and potentially navigable waterways.