Akhnoor Fort sits on a bluff above the Chenab, about 28 km from Jammu, and for as long as anyone reading this has been going there, the only way to arrive has been by road.
That is on the books to change. A 9 km stretch of the Chenab between Reasi and Akhnoor Fort has been identified for cruise-based water transport — and unlike a lot of announcements in this category, this one already has vessels on order.
Where the plan actually stands
The sequence, as recorded at a Chief Secretary's review on 4 September 2026 chaired by Atal Dulloo:
Routes designated. The 9 km Reasi–Akhnoor Fort stretch on the Chenab, plus a separate 15 km section on the Ravi at Sohar, in Jammu.
Boats ordered. The Inland Waterways Authority has procured ten specially designed hybrid eco-vessels, each carrying 20 passengers.
Delivery expected March 2027. That is the date to hold this against.
River clearing under way — though on the Jhelum rather than here, where the PWD has been tasked with removing 52 coffer dams, of which 18 are done.
What it would change for a weekend
Right now an Akhnoor day trip is a bus or a shared car and back the same way. A scheduled 20-seater turns the river itself into the reason to go — the fort approached from the water it was built to watch, rather than from the car park behind it.
Reasi at the other end is already on the Katra circuit, which makes the 9 km a plausible link between two places young Jammu travellers go anyway rather than a service invented from nothing.
The honest caveat: no fare, no timetable, no operator and no start date have been announced. Ten boats at twenty seats is a small fleet, and "delivery expected March 2027" is a delivery date, not an opening date. Treat this as a route that exists on paper with hardware ordered against it.
The other half of the review
The same meeting took up a proposal for 200 electric buses on a Gross Cost Contract model under PM E-DRIVE, routed through Convergence Energy Services Limited, which has preliminary Government of India approval. That is separate from — and additional to — the 100 electric buses already headed to Jammu, whose ₹23-crore depot at Bhagwati Nagar is under way.
For most readers the bus half is the one that will land first and matter more often. The cruise is the one worth keeping a note about for 2027.
In the meantime, the fort is open and the road still works — here is how to do Akhnoor as a Sunday.
