Waterways, logistics and NLP: Goa needs to exploit the full potential of waterways to meet its transportation needs

PANAJI: Without being solely dependent on tourism, if Goa wants to generate employment opportunities for its youth and become a logistics hub in the western zone, it must make a serious move on a war footing to fully exploit its rivers and waterways for goods and cargo transport.

So far, besides passenger transport, the waterways and rivers in Goa were used for iron ore transportation by barges from the mining belt, but with the halt to mining in the State, several barges are lying un-utilized.

Passenger transport via ferries and boats as well as tourism-related boating activity is a mere 7 percent of the overall scope of Goan waterways, claims the Centre for Promoting Indian Economy (CPIE India) in its white paper on “Transportation Issues Plaguing Goa”.

Goa has an advanced, technically competent, local shipbuilding expertise, which has been in existence for centuries, even before the Portuguese landed in the State.

Utilizing the expertise of the local shipbuilding and engineering sector, Goa must go ballistic on using its rivers for goods transport, finding ways and means to use the unused mining barges (with a few modifications) for goods transportation.

This will give a boost to the ancillary manufacturing and services sector that can generate at least a 500 more jobs each year for semi-skilled workers in the State, says CPIE India.

One Goan MLA recently raised eyebrows when he spoke about drone taxis for transportation, but instead of thinking so far, the State must utilize its idle iron ore barges making them operational for logistics and cargo transport.

According to experts, the North-South arterial road network as well as the highways in Goa have reached a saturation point and given the fact that the number of vehicles moving on the roads in Goa is expected to grow by an astounding pace of 120 per cent in the next few years, waterways and river transportation is the only hope for Goa.

Waterway transportation is not just cleaner, greener and cost-effective, it is value for money and can give the logistics sector in Goa a tremendous boost, opines Infrastructure Analyst Ramakant Shinde who heads a Broking Firm in Mumbai.

In terms of logistics and goods transportation, Goa is among the last 4 States in India – according to the 2021 LEADS survey (Logistics Ease Across Different States), which is a crying shame, given the fact that in the Standard of Living index, Goa ranks among the top 3 Indian states.

While other States are concentrating on the planning and implementation of the National Logistics Policy (NLP), Goa lags terribly behind even in basic logistics infrastructure, mostly due to local objections by activists and environmentalists.

When one talks about unemployment in Goa, Goans are to blame. Resistance to change and development is Goa’s Achilles heel that must be tackled with an iron fist on a war footing.

With Goa Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant enjoying a comfortable majority, the government must not hesitate to move forward in developing Goa into a logistics hub, implementing the NLP and fully utilizing the natural resources in terms of waterways and rivers for cargo and logistics.