India Builds Safer Navigation on 111 National Waterways

India is rebuilding its river transport around a simple idea: a vessel should know the river before it sails. A Press Information Bureau backgrounder of 16 October 2026 sets out how river surveys, navigation aids and digital portals now work together on the country's National Waterways, and why safer navigation matters as cargo volumes climb.

The network today

The country counts 111 National Waterways, running to 20,187 km across 23 States and 4 Union Territories. Of these, 32 carry traffic at present. Freight has grown sharply. Cargo moved on inland waterways stood at 29 million metric tonnes (MMT) in 2014-15 and reached 218 MMT in 2025-26, a compound annual growth rate of 20.13 per cent. That already crosses the 200 MMT mark that Maritime India Vision 2030 had set. Carrying a tonne of freight by water costs about a third of road and half of rail, and releases far less carbon, which frees highways for passengers and time-sensitive goods.

Knowing the river

The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) runs hydrographic surveys that measure depth, bed profile, shoals and flow. Thalweg surveys trace the deepest navigable line along a stretch, while terminal and jetty surveys check approach conditions. By September 2026 regular thalweg surveys covered 22 National Waterways, repeated weekly, fortnightly or monthly as each river demands; the Indian leg of the Indo-Bangladesh Protocol route was covered too. Their key output is the Least Available Depth (LAD), the minimum depth in a channel for a stretch and a season. LAD fixes the draft a vessel may carry, and so its cargo.

Aids to navigation

Buoys, radar beacons (racons), channel markers and lighthouses are recognised as Aids to Navigation under the Marine Aids to Navigation Act, 2021. The Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships (DGLL) maintains them along the coast, and India follows IALA guidance besides its SOLAS obligations. National Waterway-3 in Kerala, the West Coast Canal linking Kottapuram and Kollam, carries 312 solar-powered lighted FRP buoys and 17 beacon lamp posts.

First riverine lighthouses

In March 2026 India announced four riverine lighthouses, its first, on the Brahmaputra, which is National Waterway-2. They are coming up at Pandu, Bogibeel, Silghat and Biswanath Ghat at a cost of ₹74 crore. Each will stand 20 metres tall, reach 14 nautical miles geographically and 8 to 10 nautical miles in luminous range, run on solar power and carry weather sensors; museums, amphitheatres and cafeterias are planned alongside. NW-2 covers 891 km from Dhubri to Sadiya in Assam, the longest navigable stretch in the country, serving tea, coal and fertiliser supply chains. Its cargo rose from 0.90 MMT in 2024-25 to 1.29 MMT in 2025-26.

Digital navigation

Electronic Navigational Charts had been prepared for 18 operational and tidal waterways by September 2026, against only NW-1 before 2014, and sit on the PANI portal and the IWAI Vessel Tracker. Naudarshika, the National River Traffic and Navigation System launched in 2025, adds real-time LAD to traffic management. River Information Services run on NW-1 over Haldia-Farakka, Farakka-Patna and Patna-Varanasi with 4 control stations, 13 base stations, AIS equipment and VHF links, and consoles on 30 departmental vessels.