Despite a vast coast line and a number of waterways, why has India not been able to achieve its potential in bringing a significant modal shift from rail and road to waterways?

India has a vast coastline of 7,600 km but its inland waterway traffic constitutes of less than 1% of total freight and passenger movement. Key Inland Water Waterways: National Waterway 1 (NW1) - Allahabad to Haldia (1620 km). The waterway mode of transport is most cost efficient and thus projects like Lagarmala are a good foundation stone in this aspect.

The following reasons have been at the core of economical and governmental and ecological factors: ECONOMICAL - Infrastructure for waterways has not yet much developed, lack of multi-model hubs, and poor cities, lack of economic of scale, lack of cohesive between centre and state's regulation, high turnaround time for ships (e.g. 48 hours for port), the venture duration of marine biodiversity put up system. GOVERNMENTAL - lack of economical of scale. ECOLOGICAL - the venture duration of marine biodiversity put up systems.