IWAI releases first standardised ship designs for navigation on Ganga
01 Sep 2018
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The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) on Friday made public 13 standardised state-of-the-art ship designs suitable for large barge haulage on river Ganga (National Waterway-1).
The specially designed vessels will navigate on low drafts with high carrying capacity and at the same time are environment friendly. For the shipbuilding industry, the new designs will translate into a savings of Rs30-50 lakh in the building of a vessel, an official release stated.
These vessels will sail even in depths of about two metres carrying about 350 cars on a five deck car carrier. Some of the designs would enable movement of bulk cargo carriers with capacity of 2,500 tonnes at three metres depth, thereby, removing almost 150 truckloads of pressure from the road or one full rail rake with the plying of just one such vessel.
The new designs for various categories of dry and liquid bulk carrier, Ro-Ro vessels, car carrier, container carrier, LNG carrier, Tug Barge flotilla have been developed by DST, Germany, which specialises in low draft and high carrying capacity vessels. The model testings of the designs were done at Duisburg, Germany.
IWAI had awarded the contract to DST in September 2016 through global bidding after a rigorous screening.
The new designs are a result of rigorous river studies conducted by a high-level technical team comprising of experts from IWAI, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and Indian Register of Shipping with periodical technical consultations with domain experts of the World Bank.
The new designs will obviate the dependence of Indian Ship builders on foreign ship designs for IWT and prove to be a boost to ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Government.
The standardised low-draft IWT vessel designs include:
- Dry bulk carriers of capacity 1,570 tons, 2,120 tons and 2.480 tons;
- Liquid bulk carriers of capacity 1,460 tons and 2,400 tons;
- Ro-Ro vessels of capacity 770 DWT or 18 trucks;
- Container carrier vessel – 1,540 tons/96 TEU and 2,480 tons/208 TEU;
- LNG carrier vessel - 630 tons and 1,070 tons;
- Tug Barge Flotilla - to push 4 dumb barges;
- LNG powered dry bulk carrier of capacities 2,420 tons;
- Car carrier vessel of capacity 350 cars
Available free on the IWAI website, the designs will remove ambiguity on the class and type of vessels that can sail on river Ganga with efficient manoeuvrability.
The IWA ship designs are intended to overcome the unique navigation challenges posed by river Ganga due to its complex river morphology, hydraulics, acute bends, shifting channels, meanders and current
This marks a critical milestone in the growth of the country’s Inland Water Transport (IWT) sector as it will serve as an enabler for domestic shipbuilding industry working on inland vessels and open huge possibilities for cargo and passenger movement on National Waterway-1, the release stated.
The government is implementing Jal Marg Vikas Project (JMVP) for capacity augmentation of navigation on NW-1 (Varanasi-Haldia stretch) at a cost of Rs5,369.18 crore, with the technical assistance and investment support of the World Bank.
The designs released by IWA will help shipyards build vessels of standardised dimensions and capacity and make them available off the shelf, besides developing the ‘sale and purchase’ market for inland vessels. The designs will lead to reduced fuel costs and in turn lesser logistics costs, it added.
