Barge carrying 540 tonnes of methanol leaves Assam for Dhaka
The shipment is being seen as a test of whether the Brahmaputra can serve as a commercially viable freight corridor linking India's Northeast with overseas markets.
A barge carrying 540 tonnes of methanol has left the Bogibeel terminal on the Brahmaputra in Assam's Dibrugarh for Dhaka, in what Indian officials said is a test of the river's potential as a commercial freight corridor to overseas markets.
The methanol, produced by state-owned Assam Petro-Chemicals Ltd (APCL) at Namrup, is headed for Pangaon Port in Dhaka.
The barge will travel around 768km along National Waterway-2 on the Brahmaputra in India to the India-Bangladesh border before continuing along the bilateral protocol route. The total journey from Bogibeel in Dibrugarh to Narayanganj in Bangladesh will cover around 1,300km.
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Indian officials said the voyage is being monitored to assess whether the Brahmaputra can support commercially viable freight movement linking the Northeast with overseas markets. Regular methanol shipments to Bangladesh are planned, they said.
Indian Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who flagged off the barge at Bogibeel terminal, said the shipment marked the beginning of a new route.
"This is the first voyage, not the last," he said. "The world is no longer far away."
Sonowal also said India was working with Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar on regional waterway links.
The shipment is the first cargo sent from Assam to a foreign port since India's independence in 1947, according to the information provided.
Dibrugarh was once among the busiest river ports in eastern India. Government steamers reached the town from Calcutta, now Kolkata, by 1856. In 1882, the Dibru-Sadiya Railway began operating from the Dibrugarh steamer ghat.
By 1913, steamers were sailing daily up the Brahmaputra to the town, carrying tea, timber and passengers.
The 1947 partition disrupted the route, forcing goods from Assam to pass through what was then East Pakistan to reach Calcutta. A 1950 earthquake also altered the riverbed at Dibrugarh.
Regular bookings from Dibrugarh ghat stopped in 1954, and the ghat closed on 15 October 1956 as tea shipments shifted to rail. The 1965 war between India and Pakistan subsequently halted cross-border river trade.
In 1972, India and Bangladesh signed a river trade protocol. In 1988, the 891km stretch of the Brahmaputra from Sadiya to Dhubri was declared National Waterway-2.
Regular cargo service on the waterway did not begin until December 2017, when cement was transported from Pandu to Dhubri.
Traffic on the waterway has grown since then. Tata Steel barges reached Pandu through Bangladesh in February 2022, while the river cruise ship MV Ganga Vilas travelled from Varanasi to Dibrugarh through Bangladesh in 2023.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma called the shipment a "proud" moment for the state.
"Assam's own product, made in Namrup, is now travelling to an international market on Assam's own river. The Northeast is no longer a frontier. It is India's gateway to the East," he said.
According to India's Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, cargo movement through the country's national waterways increased from 18 million tonnes in fiscal 2013–14 to 218 million tonnes in 2025–26.
More than Rs68 billion (about $770 million) is being invested in waterways across the Northeast, including the development of National Waterway-2, a ship repair facility at Pandu and last-mile connectivity to Pandu port.
