The patronage for Kollam-Kottapuram National Waterways III has been at best confined to the inland waterways of Kochi, which are mainly being used by barges to transport raw materials from the port to industrial units like Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd (FACT). The barges use the Champakkara and Udyogamandal canals of the NW III, which have 24-hour navigational facilities, and half-a-dozen terminals that come with storage facilities and mechanised equipment for loading/unloading of cargo.
The patronage of the waterways in and around Kochi would increase if industrial units and oil majors optimally utilised NW III and Champakkara, Udyogamandal canals, since tanker lorries continued to ferry chemicals, acid, ammonia, LPG, etc., through congested roads.
A.M. James, general secretary of Kerala Maritime Organisation, whose firm owns an Italy-registered barge that transports liquefied ammonia to FACT, said transporting rate could be brought down by one-fifth if the cargo was transported in bulk through inland waterways that abound in Kerala. “Still, oil majors which have plants on the banks of the Champakkara canal which is part of NW III are yet to make use of the waterway. Inland Water Transport has more potential, since coastal shipping has not taken off in Kerala as envisaged a decade ago. That the inland waterway passes parallel to the NH, helping inter-modal transport, is an added attraction,” he said.
