The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has launched a dedicated portal to connect cargo owners and shippers with real time data on availability of vessels. The landmark e-connect measure will enable direct interaction among the vessel operators, shippers and cargo owners as currently, there is no platform to know the availability of vessels in the market. It has been designed and developed by the in-house IT department and the traffic wing of IWAI as part of its preparedness for optimal use of its ongoing capacity development on various national waterways.
Named as the Forum of Cargo-Owners and Logistics-Operators (FOCAL), the link of the portal is available at: www.iwai.nic.in.
Nutan Guha Biswas, Chairperson, IWAI, on the launch revealed, “The step is in line with IWAI’s commitment to promote Inland Water Transport (IWT) in India through critical interventions, both physical and by creating intellectual property.”