Water Transportation Service

Water transport service is mainly used for carrying cargo both in domestic and overseas operation. Water transport is classified into two types: 1. Inland water transport and 2. Overseas shipping.

Inland Water Ways

Inland water ways consist of navigable rivers, backwaters artificial modes like canals. India has 14,500 kms of navigable waterways. Having stiff competition from road and rail transport, this mode of transport has declined considerably.

Shipping
Shipping has two categories namely: 1) Coastal and 2) Overseas shipping.

Coastal Shipping
The distance covered in coastal shipping is 7560 kms. It has 13 major and 187 operatable minor working ports. Costal shipping is the most energy efficient and cheapest mode of transport for bulky goods like timber, iron and steel.

Drawbacks:
Delay in the arival of ship due to certain reasons like bad whether. Lack of mechanical handling facilities. Overaged vessels. Imbalance in coastal traffic movement.

Overseas Shipping
Overseas shipping plays an important role in India s international trade. More than 70% of India s trade volume is moved by sea. Shipping tonnage this year was 8.01 million GT of which 7.2million GT from overseas fleet.

Developments:
Modernization of fleet. Replacement of overaged fleet. Acquisition of cellular container ships. The development process continued in ninth and tenth plan periods.

PORT
In India there are 13 major and 187 minor ports. The capacity of cargo handling by Indian ports is 397.5 million tonnes in 2004-05. Developments of ports on modern lines can increase the cargo carrying capacity and passenger traffic mainly of tourist. Fishing is the major trade along the coastal region. Passenger traffic is very meagre in water transport.