National Waterway-2 runs 891 km on the Brahmaputra in Assam; National Waterway-16 is the Barak, Silchar to Bhanga

Background

Assam's two main river systems both carry declared national waterways. National Waterway-2 (NW-2) runs on the Brahmaputra from Dhubri to Sadiya (891 km) in Assam and is an operational waterway for shipping and navigation. The navigable channel on NW-2 is maintained at 2.5 m depth between Dhubri and Neamati, 2.0 m depth between Neamati and Dibrugarh and 1.5 m depth between Dibrugarh and Oriumghat, by annual maintenance dredging. National Waterway-16 is the Barak river, where fairway development works were taken up for a navigable channel of the required depth and width between Silchar and Bhanga, a distance of 70 km. 20 National Waterways out of 111 are in the North Eastern Region (NER), and other Assam rivers also carry National Waterway numbers, among them the Subansiri (NW-95) and the Dhansiri or Chathe (NW-31), on which feasibility studies have been completed. Facilities built on NW-2 include a Multimodal terminal at Pandu with Low Level and High Level Jetty, a Ro-Ro terminal at Dhubri, and a Floating terminal at 11 locations on NW-2, among them Hatsingimari, Jogighopa, Tezpur, Silghat, Biswanathghat, Neamati, Bogibeel and Oriumghat. The Brahmaputra and the Barak waterways together map the physical shape of the state: the long Brahmaputra valley in the north and the shorter Barak valley in the south.