Capt. J. S. Gill, well known maritime expert and active speaker on prestigious forums in India speaks to S. Sadanand of The Marine World on the subject of Inland Water Transport and the scenario surrounding ports in India.

Capt. Gill stresses that creation of adequate depths of water should begin with right earnest for the start of plying inland vessels on a regular basis. He says that care must be taken to see that the railways and the roadways do not kill the prospects of IWT.

What are your views regarding the renewed focus of ‘Inland Water Transport?’ What are your expectations from the same?

There have been repeated efforts in previous five year plans to revitalize the IWT, but without much progress. Happily a consensus is now gaining ground in which authorities are looking into the three essential aspects essential to make IWT workable, namely, adequate depth of water for vessels to ply through, acquiring potential cargo, and the building of loading jetties. The eleventh five-year plan has envisaged a provision of adequate funds to create all these three things. Herculean efforts on the part of Government of India and the authorities are called for in this regard.

In my own view creation of adequate depths of water should begin with right earnest, as vessels have to first begin plying on a regular basis for cargos to come.
What are the main concerns ailing IWT in India, and what are your recommendations in mitigating the same?

As mentioned before, the prime concern happens to be inadequate depth of water for IWT vessels to ply. Then there are the regulatory concerns. You will find that the IWT is not equitably implemented in all the states. On the positive side, IWT is an attractive option as it provides the cheapest per unit cost on the river leg. But the final cost to the user works out quite high considering the costs to and from the terminal to the destination. And to make matters worse for IWT, the railways and the roadways have traditionally run more or less parallel to the main rivers and they deliver goods from warehouse to warehouse. Seen in this perspective, IWT advantage of lower source cost can be realized only if the terminal costs at both ends are reduced. This can only be achieved through a policy covering the roadways and railways whereby they do not compete with the IWT to the extent that it kills the IWT.

What are your views with regard to the interlinking of the rivers project vis-à-vis IWT?

Interlinking of the rivers in India has been a pet project government of India has been nursing for very long. When Dr. K.L. Rao was the minister of shipping, the proposal was mainly to improve irrigation and crop production. It must also be noted that that this proposal also pointed to its usefulness to IWT. In the last two years we have seen a growing interest to revive this proposal. During this time a water policy has been created although it has not taken a final shape, and a few studies have also been undertaken. I would say interlinking would be a good idea by departing a bit from the old format whereby we could pick up certain main rivers for the same. The process should further guide and train the rivers so that it should not unduly spread out. In this way Inland Water Transport would also benefit.

What are the issues and challenges related to cargo movement in national waterways?

We have created national waterways namely first the Ganga, second the Bramhaputra, third the west coast rivers. In the early days there was a lot of traffic in waterways number one and two but it must be noted that during this time the railways and roadways were not as developed. We have now declared the three rivers as national waterways. Yet, we have a long way to go where acquiring cargo is concerned. And to attract cargo, customers would like to witness the regular running of vessels of adequate sizes and the costs on offer have to be beneficial to them. I would like to stress that no one will book cargo unless there is a regular sailing and there is a positive laid down time frame for the journeys. Consider this scenario in which Jagdishpur requires two hundred tones of coal everyday and I am booking the same. My objective would be to have a regular dispatch of coal and to also achieve a fair degree of economy by transporting by IWT. But, in the absence of regularity how could I even venture to have this arrangement? We know for a fact that waterways number one and two do carry on some essential movements, but by and large cargo movement is very ad hoc and piece meal.
We are coming back to the theme of depth of waters – depth of water essentially dictates the size of vessel and there is real economic advantage in increasing the size of the vessel. It is a well established that per unit cost reduces by nearly 40% by doubling the size of the vessel. If you wish to give IWT a real fillip then the authorities must encourage industries to be set up across waterfronts by giving them necessary incentives. This would enable them to acquire input supplies as well as to export finished products via inland waterways. Perhaps earnest governmental policies might help in this regard.
Then we have to address other concerns such as, the status of IWT terminals and what laws will govern them. We have so far not extended any exclusive laws to the terminals. It is time to take a close look and define the liabilities of the terminal operator towards cargo coming into their custody. It is pertinent to suggest a law like the Indian Ports act to govern these terminals.

What are your views regarding government’s efforts to increase the drafts in ports?

I have strongly advocated a national policy on drafts in various chambers of commerce and other forums I have been associated with. In this regard we must take the proactive approach the US took to create drafts to enable mega ships to arrive. Another thing is that we do not follow a uniform approach in all the ports. Each port has its own standards. For example the under keel clearance for some ports is 25% of the drafts while at others it is 20% and so forth. What we need to do is to standardize these considering the weather conditions and other parameters. So an appropriate policy framework must allow the dredging of channels to receive ships of different sizes available in trade.

But undue creation of depths is not recommended, as they may not be economically viable. We should design the channels keeping in mind the ships likely to make use of the ports. Ships do not ply in a dedicated manner from one port to the other; they go in a circuitous route. We must examine what kinds of ships visit our ports. We must decide the appropriate under keel clearance and the drafts required while taking note of the tidal window. Simultaneously we must upgrade our backup facilities by procuring good tugs and developing good berthing systems. We may also emulate European and Australian ports by having keel clearance detection systems and berthing systems that help fine-tune one’s requirements. Conducting a study earlier, I have suggested that JNPT is capable of receiving all the ships that are there today using tidal winds and without deepening the channel. I would like to add that no ships are held up at JNPT because of the issue of drafts. Looking at the long term however, we must prepare ourselves for 15,000 TEU ships.


Yet, there are berthing problems at JNPT.

Berthing problems could arise at JNPT for various reasons, but not certainly owing to drafts. The recent JNPT annual report mentions that there are no delays because of lack of draft. Inadequate shipping documentation causes impediments very often. There are instances of non-presentation of certain documents to the authorities and even cases where agents have not filed necessary papers with the customs. There are also instances of non-availability of pilots etc.

In the case of JNPT, we have a tidal rise and fall all the time, which we do not take full advantage of by scheduling ships accordingly. If JNPT would declare the daily draft for the port, ships would plan their voyages in such a way that they came in at the right time and the right tide.

Also, it is interesting to note that JNPT does not berth the ships at all times of the tide. They only berth the ships along the berth at slack waters. Even if I arrive early, I will only berth at slack waters. Similarly there are restrictions on wind force 5. After wind force 5, they do not berth the ships. A good management system would off course describe a scenario where the depths in the channels are adequate and there are good tugs to berth the ships. Similarly when the wind force is above 5, the tugs and other paraphernalia have to be such that the ships can be berthed.

Could you throw some light on current developments under the ministry of shipping and its significance?

One of the most well known projects today is the 2400 crore Sethusamudram project shaping across the Gulf of Mannar. It is expected to be cost benefited. The sizes of vessels expected here, however are the smaller ones that raise the question of commercial viability. It seems to be a good project in terms of strategic advantage to the Government of India.

A large mega container port is in the offing on the western cost as per the eleventh five-year plan. Plans are also afoot to consider PPP (Public Private Participation) to enhance ports related infrastructure and to rectify long-standing drawbacks. You must accept the fact that large vessels cannot enter many of the ports due to lack of depths. And this compels us to see smaller vessels. This in turn affects the economic viability, as cost per unit for smaller vessels is higher than larger vessels. We must make the arrival of large container ships possible in order to reduce unit costs of handling cargo for achieving economic sustenance, and thus be competitive with the rest of the world. It is a well known fact that at CIF rates the costs at Indian ports is nearly 11% and above while elsewhere especially in European ports it is only about 5 to 6%. You see this difference means that India is distinctly disadvantaged due to the high transport costs.