Major ports of the east coast

Detail

Basic ideas first

• Port: a place on the coast or on a river where ships load and unload goods and passengers. It is the gateway for a country's international trade.
• Major port: a port run by the Union Government (Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways). Minor ports are run by the State Governments.
• Hinterland: the land area behind a port. The port collects goods from this area for export and sends imports into it. A port with a bigger and richer hinterland gets more trade.
• Natural harbour: sheltered water made by nature, such as a bay or a lagoon.
• Artificial harbour: sheltered water made by people, by building breakwaters (walls in the sea that stop waves).
• Land-locked harbour: a harbour almost fully surrounded by land. It is linked to the open sea only by a narrow channel, so it is very well protected from waves and storms.
• Tidal port: a port where ships can move in or out only when the tide is high, because the water is too shallow at low tide.
• Draught: how deep a ship sits in the water. Deep harbours can take ships with a large draught (very large ships).
• Bulk cargo: loose goods carried in large amounts without packing, such as coal, iron ore, petroleum and fertilisers.
• Major ports' scale (2024-25): India's 12 major ports handled 853.56 million tonnes (MMT) of cargo in 2024-25. This was up from 819.00 MMT in 2023-24, a rise of 4.22% [2].
• Overseas cargo (trade with other countries) was 657.75 MMT (77.06%) [2].
• Coastal cargo (goods moved between Indian ports) was 195.81 MMT (22.94%) [2].

East coast ports, north to south

Port	State	Approx. latitude	Harbour type	Key cargo
Syama Prasad Mookerjee (Kolkata) + Haldia	West Bengal	~22.5°N	Riverine, tidal (Hugli)	General cargo; bulk at Haldia
Paradip	Odisha	~20.3°N	Deep harbour in the Mahanadi delta	Iron ore, coal, petroleum
Visakhapatnam	Andhra Pradesh	~17.7°N	Deepest land-locked harbour	Iron ore, petroleum, general cargo
Kamarajar (Ennore)	Tamil Nadu	~13.2°N	Built to relieve Chennai	Coal, LNG, cars
Chennai	Tamil Nadu	~13.1°N	Artificial harbour (1859)	General cargo
V.O. Chidambaranar (Thoothukudi)	Tamil Nadu	~8.8°N	Natural harbour	Coal, salt, foodgrains, edible oils

Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata

• Location: on the Hugli river (a distributary of the Ganga in West Bengal). It is 128 km inland from the Bay of Bengal.
• Only riverine major port in India. It stands on a river, not on the open coast.
• Colonial origin: the British built it up because Kolkata was the capital of British India (until 1911). It served the British trade in jute, tea and indigo.
• Renaming: the Union Cabinet approved renaming the Kolkata Port Trust as Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port. The new name was announced on 12 January 2020, at the start of the port's 150-year (sesquicentenary) celebrations [5][6].
• The silt problem:
• The Hugli carries a lot of silt (fine mud and sand).
• The silt settles in the river bed, so the channel becomes shallow.
• Ships can then move only at high tide (it is a tidal port), and the channel needs constant dredging (digging silt out of the river bed).

• The Farakka Barrage (on the Ganga in West Bengal, near the Bangladesh border) was built partly to send more Ganga water into the Hugli. The stronger flow pushes the silt out to sea.

• Loss of trade: because of the shallow, silted channel, much of its trade has moved to Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Haldia.

• Vast hinterland: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Sikkim and the North-East, plus the land-locked countries Nepal and Bhutan. Both use Kolkata as their nearest sea outlet.

Haldia Port

• Location: 105 km downstream from Kolkata, near the place where the Hugli meets the sea. The water here is deeper than at Kolkata.
• Purpose: built to reduce congestion (crowding of ships) at Kolkata.
• Cargo: bulk cargo such as iron ore, coal, petroleum, fertilisers, jute and cotton.
• Today: Haldia is run together with Kolkata. The two are counted as one major port with two parts: the Kolkata Dock System (KDS) and the Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) [2].

Paradip Port, Odisha

• Location: in the Mahanadi delta, about 100 km from Cuttack.
• Deepest harbour: it can take very large ships.
• Original purpose: built mainly to export iron ore from the Odisha–Jharkhand mineral belt.
• Hinterland: Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. This is India's main belt of iron ore and coal.
• Present-day leader:
• In 2024-25, Paradip handled 150.41 MMT, the most of any major port [2][3].
• It was just ahead of Deendayal (Kandla) on the west coast, at 150.16 MMT [2][3].
• It was the first time any major port crossed the 150 MMT mark [3].
• Paradip's share was about 17.62% of all major-port cargo in 2024-25 [3].

• Coal and petroleum are now its main cargo. Coal moves along the coast to power plants in the south and west.

• Green hydrogen hub: the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has recognised Paradip as a Green Hydrogen Hub under the National Green Hydrogen Mission [4].

• Green hydrogen means hydrogen made by splitting water with renewable electricity, so no carbon is released.
• A green hydrogen / green ammonia handling jetty has been approved at Paradip. It will be built in PPP (public–private partnership) mode, cost ₹797.17 crore and handle 4 million tonnes per year [7].

Visakhapatnam Port, Andhra Pradesh

• Deepest land-locked and well-protected harbour in India.
• Entrance channel: a channel was cut through solid rock and sand to link the harbour to the sea.
• Outer harbour: added later for large ships. It handles:
• iron ore, mainly ore from the Bailadila mines (Dantewada, Chhattisgarh), exported to Japan and South Korea,
• petroleum,

• general cargo (mixed packed goods).

• Hinterland: Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It also handles Bailadila ore from Chhattisgarh.

• Cargo: Visakhapatnam handled 82.62 MMT in 2024-25. It was among the top major ports that year [2].

Chennai Port

• One of the oldest ports on the east coast.
• Artificial harbour built in 1859.
• Limitation: the water near the coast is shallow, so it is not suitable for very large ships.
• Rank: NCERT ranks it next to Mumbai in volume of trade (NCERT: Class 10, an older ranking). Today Paradip, Deendayal and Visakhapatnam all handle more cargo [2][3].
• Hinterland: Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Kamarajar Port (Ennore)

• Location: 25 km north of Chennai.
• Purpose: built to relieve pressure on Chennai Port.
• First corporatised major port: it is run as a company (Kamarajar Port Limited), not as a port trust. This gives it more freedom over money and management.
• Cargo: coal (for thermal power plants in Tamil Nadu), LNG (liquefied natural gas: natural gas cooled into a liquid so it is easier to ship) and cars exported from the Chennai car-making belt.

V.O. Chidambaranar Port (Thoothukudi)

• Location: southern Tamil Nadu, near the Gulf of Mannar, which lies between India and Sri Lanka.
• Natural harbour with a rich hinterland.
• Cargo: coal, salt, foodgrains, edible oils, sugar, chemicals and petroleum products.
• Trade partners: close to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, so it handles much of India's trade with them.
• Green hydrogen hub: MNRE has recognised it as a Green Hydrogen Hub under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, along with Paradip and Deendayal [4].
• The port has set aside 205.72 acres for green hydrogen and green ammonia projects [7].
• It started a 10 Nm³ pilot green hydrogen plant in April 2025 [7].
• It is building a green methanol bunkering facility (a place to refuel ships with green methanol) of 2 × 750 cubic metres [7].

From colonial trade to today

• Colonial period: Kolkata and Chennai were built to take raw materials (jute, tea, cotton, indigo) to Britain and to bring in British factory goods.
• After Independence: Paradip and Visakhapatnam were developed to export iron ore, and Haldia to take load off Kolkata.
• After 1991 (liberalisation): trade grew fast. New ports such as Ennore (Kamarajar) were built as companies, and private terminals came up at older ports.
• Today: ports are also moving into clean energy, such as green hydrogen hubs at Paradip and Thoothukudi [4].

Prelims Hooks

• Only riverine major port: Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata (on the Hugli, 128 km inland). It was renamed from Kolkata Port Trust in 2020 [6].
• Haldia is 105 km downstream of Kolkata. It is not a separate major port; it is the Haldia Dock Complex of SMP Kolkata [2].
• Deepest land-locked, well-protected harbour: Visakhapatnam. Deepest harbour suited to very large ships: Paradip (Mahanadi delta).
• Largest major port by cargo in 2024-25: Paradip (150.41 MMT), just ahead of Deendayal (150.16 MMT) [2].
• First corporatised major port: Kamarajar (Ennore), 25 km north of Chennai.
• Artificial harbour (1859): Chennai. Natural harbour near the Gulf of Mannar: V.O. Chidambaranar (Thoothukudi).
• Green Hydrogen Hub ports (MNRE): Deendayal (Gujarat), Paradip (Odisha), V.O. Chidambaranar (Tamil Nadu) [4].
• North-to-south order: Kolkata → Haldia → Paradip → Visakhapatnam → Kamarajar → Chennai → Thoothukudi.
• Bailadila iron ore (Chhattisgarh) is exported mainly through Visakhapatnam to Japan and South Korea.
• Trap: Nepal and Bhutan are land-locked and use Kolkata–Haldia, not Paradip, as their main sea outlet.

Mains Points

• Site factors decide a port's fate: Kolkata's silted, tidal Hugli channel needs constant dredging and Farakka water. Deep-water ports such as Paradip and Visakhapatnam took its bulk trade. Haldia, built downstream, was a partial fix (GS-I: location of industries and infrastructure).
• Port–mineral links: the Odisha–Jharkhand–Chhattisgarh mineral belt feeds Paradip and Visakhapatnam. This made the east coast the main outlet for coal, iron ore and petroleum. Paradip led all major ports in 2024-25 [2][3] (GS-III: infrastructure).
• Regional and neighbourhood role: Kolkata–Haldia serves the North-East and land-locked Nepal and Bhutan. Thoothukudi serves Sri Lanka and the Maldives. East coast ports therefore support the Act East and Neighbourhood First policies.
• Energy transition at ports: green hydrogen hubs at Paradip and V.O. Chidambaranar, the ₹797.17 crore green ammonia jetty and green methanol bunkering show ports turning into clean-energy export centres [4][7] (GS-III: energy, environment).