Kolkata: Creating a landmark in the history of inland waterways of India, a vessel carrying 24 Maruti Suzuki cars reached Garden Reach jetty II of Inland Water Transport Authority IWTA ) in Kolkata on Friday from Varanasi. The successful experiment ushered in a new era for cargo movement in the country as it would not only reduce the cost of transportation but take pressure off the roadways, which are already very congested and nearing saturation.The vessel — M V VV Giri — belonging to IWTA which flagged off by Union minister of road transport, highways and shipping Nitin Gadkari on August 12 took six days from Varanasi to reach Kolkata. “It is purely an experimental shipment of a Maruti consignment. But at the end of the 1210-km-long trip, the collective impact was very positive. Maruti does not even need to take the cars to its own warehouse but straight to dealers. We are allowing transporters to use IWTA warehouses and keep their consignment for seven days at free of cost,” said IWTA additional director Arvind Kumar Despite having the best riverine networks in the world, inland waterways is largely untapped in India. The 1620km route on the Ganges from Allahabad to Haldia National Waterway 1 (NW1) — has seen sudden spurt of cargo movement, particularly coal, fly ash and cement. Following the cancellation of coal block for national thermal power project at Farakka, the imported coal is now travelling through NW1.“It is such a hassle-free trip that more and more business groups are approaching us for transporting their consignments through national waterway-1. The draft has been no issue. For trial run, we brought only 24 cars. But this same vessel can easily carry 200 cars. More we carry, cheaper will be transportation cost. Now, Hyundai have also approched us for their shipment,” said Captain Solanki of IWTA.According to IWTA, transporting a car on road alone costs Rs 15,000. But on vessel, the cost comes down to Rs 8,000. This can come down to Rs 6,000, if the consignment size is 200 plus. There are vessels which can even carry 2,000 cars, reducing the cost of transportation further to a negligible amount, it added.The government is developing NW1 under the Jal Marg Vikash Project with assistance from World Bank at an estimated cost of Rs 4,200 crore. The Garden Reach jetty was developed by IWTA after purchasing the required land from Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT). The jetty along with warehouse can handle cargo mechanically. This project will enable commercial navigation of vessel with capacity of 1500-2000 DWT tonnage.