Navigating India’s Waterways: Building a Safer, Smarter Network

India is expanding and modernizing its inland water transport ecosystem to handle growing freight movement, which rose from 29 million metric tonnes in 2014-15 to 218 million metric tonnes in 2025-26. To support safe and predictable 24x7 navigation across the country's 111 National Waterways (32 operational), multiple technological and infrastructural interventions are deployed. These include hydrographic surveys by the Inland Waterways Authority of India to track Least Available Depth, the deployment of Aids to Navigation under the Marine Aids to Navigation Act 2021, the establishment of India's first riverine lighthouses on the Brahmaputra (National Waterway-2), and digital monitoring platforms like PANI, IWAI Vessel Tracker, Naudarshika, and River Information Services.