Pariksha SaathiInland waterways cargo at 218 million tonnes in 2025-26; India's first riverine lighthouses on the Brahmaputra
A PIB backgrounder of 16 October 2026 on inland navigation says India has 111 National Waterways with a total length of 20,187 km across 23 states and 4 union territories, of which 32 are operational, and that cargo on inland waterways rose from 29 million metric tonnes in 2014-15 to 218 million metric tonnes in 2025-26, a compound annual growth rate of 20.13 per cent that has already crossed the Maritime India Vision 2030 target of 200 million tonnes. Moving a tonne of freight by water costs roughly a third of road transport and half of rail. The Inland Waterways Authority of India runs hydrographic surveys, including thalweg surveys that track the deepest navigable channel; as of September 2026 electronic navigational charts exist for 18 waterways. In March 2026 India announced its first four riverine lighthouses, on the Brahmaputra (National Waterway-2, Dhubri to Sadiya): 20-metre, solar-powered structures for round-the-clock navigation on a corridor whose cargo grew from 0.90 to 1.29 million tonnes between 2024-25 and 2025-26. Digital tools include the PANI portal for asset and navigation information, the IWAI Vessel Tracker and Naudarshika, the National River Traffic and Navigation System launched in 2025 with real-time least available depth.
Drafted with AI assistance from the official PIB release linked above and checked against it by a second AI pass. Not line-edited by a human.
Learning context
The National Waterways Act, 2016, in force from 12 April 2016, declared 111 National Waterways. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) was set up on 27 October 1986 under the IWAI Act, 1985 and is headquartered in Noida under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. NW-1 is the Ganga from Prayagraj to Haldia (1,620 km), NW-2 the Brahmaputra from Dhubri to Sadiya (891 km) and NW-3 the West Coast Canal in Kerala. A million metric tonnes (MMT) is 10 lakh tonnes.
Reference: Inland Waterways Authority of India official website
Check yourself: are all 111 National Waterways in use for cargo?
No. The backgrounder says 32 of the 111 are operational; the rest are declared waterways still to be developed.
Revision task: from this release, note the cargo figures (29 to 218 MMT, 20.13 per cent CAGR), the count of operational waterways and the lighthouse details, and keep them apart from the standing facts about the Act and IWAI above.
Test yourself
According to the PIB backgrounder of 16 October 2026, India's first riverine lighthouses are being set up on which river?
Show the answer
Answer: Brahmaputra (National Waterway-2)
The first four riverine lighthouses, announced in March 2026, are on the Brahmaputra, National Waterway-2 from Dhubri to Sadiya; they are 20-metre, solar-powered structures for 24x7 navigation.
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