Inland Vessels Bill 2021: All you need to know

The Parliament has passed the Inland Vessels Bill 2021 recently. The Government expects that the new law would be helpful in removing bottlenecks for vessel movement within the country. The experts are however of the view that this would benefit the MSMEs, but Idia waterways need to be developed further and made navigable throughout the year for better industrial development. 

Listed below is the total number of National waterways in India. 

National Waterways of India:

Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has put in place a structured management and monitoring system with competent and experienced professionals, to ensure that the projects on NWs are qualitatively executed in a time bound manner.  In addition, the progress of execution of projects is regularly reviewed at various levels within IWAI and the Government.

Inland Vessels Bill 2021: Some Facts

1. Around 14,500 km of navigable waterways
2. 111 waterways have been declared as National Waterways under National Waterways Act 2016. 
3. Inland Vessels Bill 2021, would be replacing the Inland Vessels Act 1917 after passing in Parliament. 
4. The Inland Vessels Bill 2021 would be helpful for domestic cargo movement with potentially lower rates. The proposed law is in line with the Modi Govt's aim to develop inland ports and harness India's 7500 km coastline and potentially navigable waterways. 
5. As per the Government's expectations, the programme would create 1 crore new jobs including direct employment of 40 lakh people, in the next 10 years, reducing logistics and speeding up the cargo movement. 
6. The new law would also replace the rules framed by the states within a uniform regulatory framework for inland vessel navigation that would support operation of registered boats, container vessels, ships etc throughout the country. The vessels would be requiring a certificate of approval to sail inland waterways. 

Inland Vessels Law: Prescriptions made in the Act 

The law is prescribing the minimum number of people that the vessel must contain and violation of these would cost the violator upto INR 10,000 for the first offence and 25,000 for the subsequent offences. 

The centre would also prescribe the standards for the qualification of the crew members on the vessel as well training, examination and grant of certificate of competency. 

The bill would be ensuring that the vessels follow the specifications for signals and equipment to ensure the safety including the ones pertaining to responding to distress signals. 

Development fund would be set up for emergencies and containment of pollution and boosting inland water navigation. 

More than 4000 km of the inland waterways are operational in India and with the new bill the government would get to promote the development of India's inland shipping fleet. It also expects more ports to be developed around the country to promote the use of cargo.