Sarbananda Sonowal. File | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Guwahati
The center created a plan that will prepare youth northeast countries for 50,000 jobs in the naval sector in the next 10 years, Sarbananda Sonowal, Minister of Port, said Sarbananda Sonowal (July 7, 2025).
The Union Government has set a goal to generate 5,000 youth jobs in the area of eight countries every year through the Center for the Development of Maritime Skills in Guwahati and the upcoming Excellence Center in Dibruugar, 200 Crore, he said.
“In accordance with the vision of the Prime Minister, we are planning to train, enable and seize the 50,000 northeast with naval skills in the next decade and to ensure meaningful employment and growth,” Sonowal said at the Guwahati event to mark 11 years of Narendra Modi-Led.
Since 2014, the Indian maritime sector has been transformed with record growth in the area of cargo, capacity and coastal transport, claimed. The main ports almost doubled their capacity, while tourism has grown with ambitious new terminals, he said.
“Key legislative and digital reforms, green shipping initiatives and projects such as the Kaladanian project for multipodal transit transport, strengthen regional connectivity and trade. Indian ports are now worldwide, with nine ranking in the first 100 World Bank and Visakhapatnam,” Sonowal said.
The commitment of the Center to make India a global maritime powerhouse and management management across each coastal and river region led to unprecedented growth from the reinforced port capacity and cost of pioneering green transport, tourism and youth skills.
Beacons
The success of the touring of the lighthouse along the Indian coast would be extended to the national waterway, including the Brahmaputra River, Mr. Sonowal said. He said that the focus on modernization and beautification of approximately 205 marine lighthouses led to a 400% increase in tourist footprint from 4 lamps in 2014 to 16 lakhs during the fiscal year 2023-24.
“We plan to build four tourist lighthouses on Brahmaputře-one in Bogibeel, Biswanath Ghat, Silghat and Pandu (Guwahati).
Since 2023, the Ministry of Transport has carried out projects worth 1,000 crore in the inland waterway sector, Sonowal said. These projects are scheduled to complete by 2025.
The Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transit Project, which includes connectivity on the road and the rivers between Mizoram and the port of Sittwe in Myanmar, was fully functional by 2027, he said.
Bangladeshi factor
The political situation in Bangladesh did not affect inland water transport on the protocol routes in Indo-Bangladesh, Sonowal said. These routes allow freight transport between the Indian mainland and the northeast on the rivers through Bangladesh.
“The bilateral agreement on the movement of freight vessels is still standing. We are 4 million metric tons of goods on the protocol routes in Indo-Bangladesh annually,” he said.
“We want a good relationship with our neighbors, regardless of their internal problems,” Sonowal said.
Published – July 7, 2025 22:33
