Guwahati: Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal on Thursday laid the foundation stones for four riverine lighthouses along the Brahmaputra River, marking the first time lighthouse infrastructure will be established on an inland waterway in India.
The foundation ceremony was held at Lachit Ghat in Guwahati and was organised jointly by the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships (DGLL) and the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways.
The four lighthouses will be built at Pandu in Kamrup (Metro) district, Bogibeel in Dibrugarh district, Silghat in Nagaon district, and Biswanath Ghat in Biswanath district. While three sites are located on the south bank of the river, Biswanath Ghat will be the only lighthouse on the north bank.
The lighthouses will be developed along the National Waterway 2 (NW-2), which runs along the Brahmaputra and serves as a major cargo and passenger corridor in Northeast India.
The project involves a total investment of around Rs 84 crore. Each lighthouse will be about 20 metres tall, with a geographical range of 14 nautical miles and a luminous range of 8–10 nautical miles. The structures will be powered entirely by solar energy.
Besides navigation infrastructure, the sites will also include museums, amphitheatres, cafeterias, children’s play areas, souvenir shops and landscaped public spaces, aiming to promote tourism alongside maritime safety.
Speaking at the event, Sonowal said inland waterways are emerging as a crucial component of India’s transport infrastructure.
He said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, inland waterways are being developed as a major economic force multiplier. Transporting cargo by water is significantly cheaper and more environmentally friendly than road transport.
According to the IWAI, cargo movement on NW-2 increased by 53 per cent in the financial year 2024–25, reflecting the growing importance of the Brahmaputra corridor for industries such as tea, coal and fertiliser, along with passenger and tourism traffic.
The minister said the new lighthouses would support round-the-clock navigation on the river and help improve safety while facilitating further growth in cargo and passenger movement.
The project follows a memorandum of understanding signed between IWAI and DGLL on April 8, 2025. Land for the four sites was transferred to DGLL under Right of Use agreements in June 2025.
Each lighthouse is expected to be completed within 24 months after the award of contracts, following geotechnical investigations, surveys and detailed design.
Among those present at the ceremony were Assam Tourism Minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass, Transport Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, Public Health Engineering Minister Jayanta Mallabaruah, Guwahati MP Bijuli Kalita Medhi and East Guwahati MLA Siddhartha Bhattacharya.
The riverine lighthouses would form part of a broader plan to equip inland waterways with navigational safety infrastructure similar to that used along India’s coastline.
The Brahmaputra stretch of NW-2 connects Dhubri near the Assam–West Bengal border to Sadiya in upper Assam across a navigable length of about 891 kilometres, making it one of the longest operational inland waterways in the country.
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