Tuesday, November 13, 2007

WaterWays - An amazing way of transfer

Water ways - The most cost effective transport system:

This is the outcome ofyet another discussion with Doddappa(Uncle). We were actually about varied careers and how one can be successful and not be yet another engineer or a doctor. Though we came up with a lot of options like being a scientist after doing a masters in pure science or may be be take up journalism and many more, but the one that stood out as an extremely lucrative one was Merchant Navy. Then my sister asked the typical youngster question: "What do these people at Merchat Navy do??!!". That was what my uncle was precisely waiting for, an opportunity, and he started the gyaan transfer.

Though most of what he said was known to me, there was one thing which struck me like anything. He said that a large part of mass-goods transfer i.e actual large scale business hapened through water-ways because it was the cheapest mode. Though I knew this bit of fact the reason for this interested me more than anything. It is very simple. For roadways we ave to "maintain roads", for railways we have to "maintain rails", for airways though we do not have to "maintain air" its really a costly affair to maintain airports, the air traffic control and hence makes air-transport an ultimately costly choice for transfer of all regular mass usage goods. But with waterways there is no such thing at all. Ships move on waters and seas and oceans take care of that. Traffic control is a lot easier than airways. From what I know fuel is also much cheaper compared to the extremely high quality air-fuel. (So much of comparision with airways is because the others cannot be used for transport across the globe)

So all that we need to worry about is ports/harbours. i have heard about natural harbours and hence I guess even those costs are partly taken care by Mother nature already. This and so many other things make water ways the obvious choice for shipping large amounts of goods. may be other modes of transport will make transportation charges itself more than the actual cost of the goods being transported.

Now there might be some environmental considerations that need to be taken care of. Because recently when some American or French ship was coming to Gujarat port for scrapping there was a lot of opposition as it was hazardous and leading to pollution big time. But still cost stands a big deal. I hope our good scientist fellows will soon find a less hazardous and pollution-free shipping ways. :-)

So businessman and would be businessman, watch out for your shipyard. And also learn how to swim, just in case, you know. ;-)
Hail Water-ways, Hail mother Nature... (Thank god I can swim :P )

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