Patna water metro: Rs 50 Ganga catamaran rides start from Digha Ghat

Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary flagged off a water metro service on the Ganga in Patna on Tuesday, 10 November 2026, starting from Digha Ghat. The service uses a 50-seat hybrid catamaran that runs mainly on electric power, and the adult fare is Rs 50. With the launch, Patna becomes the second Indian city after Kochi in Kerala to run a water metro, and the state government says a joint task force will now study similar services on the Son, Gandak and Kosi rivers.

Patna stretches for several kilometres along the southern bank of the Ganga, and most of its daily traffic squeezes onto a few long east-west roads. A boat service along the river gives residents and visitors another way to move between the city's ghats, the stepped river banks that are also Patna's main public gathering places. The timing is deliberate: Chhath, the festival in which devotees offer prayers to the setting and rising sun while standing in the river, brings very large crowds to the same ghats every year.

The choice of a mainly electric boat also matters. A diesel ferry is noisy and leaves fuel traces in the water. The Chief Minister's Office said the hybrid design helps reduce air, water and noise pollution. That claim is the government's own description; independent figures on the boat's emissions have not been published.

Reports of the launch do not agree on where the route ends. Most say the boat runs from Digha Ghat to Gandhi Ghat and back. Others describe the run as Digha Ghat to NIT Ghat, about 9.5 km, and some mention a later extension towards Kangan Ghat. Until the Tourism Department publishes a timetable, travellers should confirm the stops at the Digha Ghat ticket counter. The ticket counter itself is also the only way to buy for now.

Peepals calculation: under the announced fare rules, a family of two adults, one child aged eight and one child aged three would pay Rs 125 for a ride (Rs 50 + Rs 50 + Rs 25 + Rs 0). The service day of 9 am to 6 pm gives nine hours of operation, so with one 50-seat boat the number of seats offered depends entirely on how many round trips fit into those nine hours. Our calculation from the reported figures.

Kochi in Kerala is the only other Indian city with a water metro, which is why the Patna launch is being described as the second of its kind. Patna's service starts small: one route from Digha Ghat and one type of boat. Whether it grows into a real commuter network will depend on how many people use it after the festival season, and on whether the planned task force finds the other rivers deep and steady enough for regular boats.

Short-term: Visitors to the Patna ghats during Chhath and the winter tourist season get a new way to see the riverfront, at a fixed fare and with wheelchair access on board.

Long-term: If ridership holds, the service could be extended along the Ganga and copied on the Son, Gandak and Kosi, which the joint task force of central and state officials has been asked to study.

Who is affected: Patna residents who live near the ghats, tourists, devotees travelling for Chhath, and people with limited mobility who find crowded roads hard to use.

What to watch next: the start of online ticket booking, which officials say is expected soon, and the findings of the task force on the Son, Gandak and Kosi rivers.

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