Pipelines and Waterways

Pipelines and Waterways

The pipeline transportation network is a relatively recent addition to India’s transportation environment. These deliver crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas from oil and gas fields to refineries, fertiliser facilities, and large thermal power plants. The initial cost of installing pipes is considerable, but the later operating expenses are low. It eliminates the possibility of trans-shipment losses or delays. On the other hand, waterways are the most cost-effective mode of transportation. They are best suited for transporting large and bulky items.

It is a low-emission and environmentally beneficial means of transportation. In India, there are 14,500 kilometres of inland navigation waterways. The Government has designated waterways 1, 2, 3, and 4 as National Waterways. There are also more inland rivers where significant transportation occurs. Mandavi, Zuari, and Cumberjua, as well as the Sunderbans, Barak, and Kerala’s backwaters, are examples.

Pipelines

• The pipeline transport network is one more appearance on the transportation guide of India
• Besides water transportation, it has been presently used for delivering crude oil, oil-based merchandise, and combustible gas from oil and combustible gas fields to treatment offices, manure creation lines, and gigantic thermal power plants
• Solids can similarly be sent through a pipeline when changed over into slurry
• The far inland spaces of treatment offices like Barauni, Mathura, Panipat, and gas-based fertiliser plants could be considered basically on pipelines
• Starting cost of laying pipelines is extraordinarily high, yet the running costs are insignificant. It blocks trans-shipment adversities or deferrals

Three important Networks of Pipeline Transportation in India

• From the oil field in Upper Assam to Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh): It goes through Guwahati, Barauni, and Allahabad. It has branches from Barauni to Haldia, through Rajbandh, Rajbandh to Maurigram, and Guwahati to Siliguri
• From Salaya in Gujarat to Jalandhar in Punjab: Viramgam, Mathura, Delhi, and Sonipat. It has branches to relate Koyali (close to Vadodara, Gujarat), Chakshu, and different spots
• Gas pipeline from Hazira in Gujarat partners Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh: It goes through Vijaipur in Madhya Pradesh. It has branches in Kota in Rajasthan, Shahjahanpur, Babrala, and other places in Uttar Pradesh

Waterways

• Advantages:
  • Streams are the most affordable strategy for transport
  • For the most part, they are sensible for passing on profound and monstrous items
  • It is an eco-accommodating and genial environment strategy for transport
• India has inland course floods of 14,500 km long. Out of these, vitally 5685 km are utilised via robotized vessels

National Waterways (NW) of India

• NW No 1: The Ganga stream between Allahabad and Haldia (1620 km)
• NW No 2: The Brahmaputra stream between Sadiya and Dhubri (891 km)
• NW No 3: The West-Coast Canal in Kerala (Kottapuram-Kollam, Udyogamandal and Champakkara channels 205 km)
• NW No 4: Specified stretches of Godavari and Krishna streams nearby Kakinada Puducherry stretch of channels (1078 km)
• NW No 5: Specified stretches of stream Brahmani close by Matai stream, delta channels of Mahanadi and Brahmani streams, and East Coast Canal (588 km)
• Some other inland streams on which broad transportation happens are Mandavi, Zuari, Cumberjua, Sunderbans, Barak, and backwaters of Kerala

Major Ports

• With a long coastline of 7,516.6 km, India is speckled with 13 huge and 200 informed non-majors (minor/centre) ports
• These huge ports handle 95% of India’s new trade

Ports on Western Coast

• Kandla in Kachchh: The chief port developed a little while after Independence to work with the volume of trade on the Mumbai port, straightforwardly following the loss of Karachi port to Pakistan after the Partition. It is generally called the Deendayal Port and is a streaming port. It considers the beneficial treatment of products and imports of uncommonly valuable storage facilities and present-day belts stretching out across Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat
• Mumbai is the best port with an open customary and all-around ensured harbour
• The Jawaharlal Nehru Port was organised to decongest the Mumbai port and fill it in as a middle point port for this district
• Mormugao Port (Goa): India’s central iron mineral conveying port and records around half of India’s iron metal items
• New Mangalore Port (Karnataka): It transports iron metal concentrates from Kudremukh mines
• Kochi: It is the very south-western port, arranged at the section of a lagoon with a trademark harbour

Ports on Eastern Coast

• Tuticorin (Tamil Nadu): It is a ludicrous south-eastern port and has a trademark harbour and rich hinterland. It has a flourishing trade treatment of a gigantic collection of cargoes to connecting countries like Sri Lanka, Maldives, etc., and the shoreline locale of India
• Chennai is perhaps the most settled fake port of India and is placed near Mumbai to the extent of the volume of trade and cargo
• Visakhapatnam: It is the most significant landlocked port. It was at first envisioned as a hotspot for iron mineral items 
  • Paradip Port (Odisha): It has down-to-earth insight into the iron metal industry
  • Kolkata is an inland riverine port and serves a particularly tremendous and rich hinterland of the Ganga-Brahmaputra bowl. It is a streaming port and requires consistent burrowing of Hooghly
  • Haldia Port: It was made as a helper port to mollify, creating strain on the Kolkata port

Conclusion

The pipeline transportation network is a relatively recent addition to India’s transportation landscape. These were previously used to transport water to cities and industries. They are now used to carry crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas from oil and gas fields to refineries, fertiliser facilities, and large thermal power plants. The initial cost of installing pipes is considerable, but the latter operating expenses are low. It eliminates the possibility of trans-shipment losses or delays.

India features a vast network of inland waterways, including rivers, canals, backwaters, and creeks. The overall navigable length is 14,500 km, of which about 5200 km of river and 4000 km of canals is accessible by mechanised vessels. When compared to other big nations and geographic regions such as the United States, China, and the European Union, freight transit by waterways in India is vastly underutilised. In India, the total freight handled (in tonne kilometres) via inland waterways accounted for just 0.1 percent of overall inland trade, compared to 21 percent in the United States. Cargo transit is restricted to a few rivers in Goa, West Bengal, Assam, and Kerala.