MoU Between Numaligarh Refinery Limited And Inland Waterways Authority of India

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in Guwahati between Assam-based Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) and Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) for the transportation of petroleum and petrochemical products to Bangladesh and other Southeast Asian nations.

Importance of MoU:

• The MoU will pave the way for making rivers navigable throughout the year by IWAI and assist in bringing large cargoes and capital equipment including single-piece pre-fabricated process plants for the refinery expansion projects. Also, it will open up trade and commerce as outward freight movement in large consignments will be possible using NW 2 (Brahmaputra River).
• The Indo-Bangla Protocol Rout and National Waterways (NW) -2 an important waterways for the transformation of the NE States as export and import can be easily done.
• As part of the Centre’s Hydrocarbon Vision 2030, the NRL has embarked on a major refinery expansion project to treble its existing refining capacity from 3 MMTPA to 9 MMTPA. The NRL has set the target to transport 10,000 MT of petroleum and petrochemical products per month fulfilling the Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 for the North Eastern States.

About Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI):

• The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) came into existence on 27th October 1986 for development and regulation of inland waterways for shipping and navigation. The Authority primarily undertakes projects for development and maintenance of IWT infrastructure on national waterways through grants received from the Ministry of Shipping. 
• The head office of the Authority is at Noida. The Authority also has its regional offices at Patna, Kolkata, Guwahati and Kochi and sub-offices at Allahabad, Varanasi, Farakka, Sahibganj, Haldia, Swroopganj, Hemnagar, Dibrugarh, Dhubri, Silchar, Kollam, Bhubaneswar  and Vijayawada.
• India has about 14,500 km of navigable waterways which consist of rivers, canals, backwaters, creeks, etc. 
• About 55 million tonnes of cargo is being moved annually by Inland Water Transport (IWT), a fuel - efficient and environment -friendly mode. 
• Its operations are currently restricted to a few stretches in the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly rivers , the Brahmaputra, the Barak river, the rivers in Goa, the backwaters in Kerala, inland waters in Mumbai and the deltaic regions of the Godavari - Krishna rivers.