Guwahati, May 17: The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has convened a two-day stakeholders' meet here from May 22 to explore the potential of 19 new national waterways.

Altogether 19 rivers in the Northeast were declared national waterways in April last year under The National Waterways Act, 2016. These include the Barak, Dhansiri, Subansiri, Aie, Beki, Dehing, Dikhu, Doyang, Kopili, Puthimari and Gangadhar.

An IWAI official said this is the first time a stakeholders' meeting will be organised to put the inland waterways transport on the fast track. Another official said feasibility studies and detailed project reports of the new national waterways are in progress.

"The rivers in Assam are feeder routes connecting to the Brahmaputra," he said.

While the Brahmaputra was declared a national waterway many years ago, the traffic volume is yet to grow commensurate to the facilities created. "It has been decided to explore the possibilities of improvement of inland waterway operation through National Waterway 2 (the Brahmaputra) by exploring all possible means for promoting it. A roadshow will be also organised," he said. "Transporters, shipbuilders, shipping agents and others will attend the meet for identifying ways and means to promote inland water transport in the Northeast," he added.

The Centre, in consultation with the Assam government, is developing a ship repair facility at Pandu here. The project is expected to save financial and time loss to IWT operators as, at present, vessels in need of repair have to be taken to Calcutta via Bangladesh, which takes 30-40 days. Around 25 per cent work of the project has been completed and it is scheduled to be completed by December 2018.

The Centre has also taken the initiative to provide safe and secure inland water transport ferry services to people and their belongings, including loaded vehicles, through roll-on-roll-off vessel.

A state-of-the-art Ro-Ro vessel, which can ferry eight trucks and 100 passengers, has already been acquired and is ready to be deployed on the Dhubri-Hatsinghimari route.

The Ro-Ro service will provide a direct link between Assam and Meghalaya, cutting down on the circuitous 220km road route through Jogighopa bridge.

Two more routes, Neematighat to Kamalabari and Dibrugarh to Sengajan, have been selected for similar Ro-Ro services and the project reports will be completed soon.