Govt Notifies National Waterways Regulations 2025 to Boost Private Investment in Inland Water Transport
To promote cargo movement, the Government has launched the Jalvahak Scheme, offering incentives of up to 35% to encourage a shift of freight from road and rail to inland waterways.
The Jalyan & Navic single-window portal, India's national registry for inland vessels and crew, is now fully operational. As of 30 July 2026, 18 States and Union Territories have been onboarded, with 9,953 inland vessels and 1,215 crew members registered on the platform.
The Government identified limited industrial clusters along waterways, inadequate multimodal logistics infrastructure, shortage of suitable inland vessels, weak first and last-mile connectivity, and low awareness among cargo owners as key challenges for expanding inland water transport.
To address these issues, initiatives are underway to develop multimodal terminals, cargo aggregation hubs and logistics parks, improve fairway maintenance, operationalise additional Indo-Bangladesh Protocol routes, strengthen passenger and cruise infrastructure, and encourage greater cargo movement through collaboration with Central Ministries, State Governments, PSUs and private stakeholders.
Published on:
05 August 2026
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