Former President A P J Abdul Kalam today said that nationwide smart waterway, based on the concept of a river grid, covering all major rivers in the country could be started from the Brahmaputra river in Assam.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the 14th convocationof the IIT Guwahati.

The Former President said, what a country need is a smart waterway in the Brahmaputra, a waterway which would be navigable 24 hours. He asserted that like the national power grid, the county needs a national waterway, and Brahmaputra should be the starting point for this. A P J Abdul Kalam also said that he is in the favour for linking of rivers.

Earlier in his convocation speech, the former President asked students of IIT-Guwahati to take up the project. On the development of science, he said nanotechnology would replace microelectronics and other fields in the days to come in areas of medicine, electronics and material science.

Kalam said the goal is to create a India by 2020 where the divide between rural and urban areas would be reduced, distribution of energy and water would be equitable and all sectors of economy would work in harmony.