Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal lays foundation for India's first river lighthouses in Assam

Key facts

• Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW) Sarbananda Sonowal laid foundation stones for four river lighthouses on the Brahmaputra in Assam, the first such infrastructure on an inland waterway in India.
• The lighthouses are located at Bogibeel in Dibrugarh, Pandu in Kamrup Metropolitan, Silghat in Nagaon, and Biswanath Ghat in Biswanath along National Waterway-2 (NW-2).
• The project has a combined outlay of ₹ 84 crore, with each 20-metre-high lighthouse powered entirely by solar energy.
• Each structure will have a geographical range of 14 nautical miles and a luminous range of 8–10 nautical miles to enable 24x7 safe navigation and accommodate weather observation sensors.
• The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) and the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships (DGLL) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project in April 2025.
• The DGLL, under the MoPSW, is the statutory authority responsible for providing aids to navigation across India's 11,098 kilometre coastline and inland waterways.
• The initiative follows a 53 per cent surge in cargo movement on the Brahmaputra waterway recorded by IWAI in the financial year 2024–25.