India's maritime industry has seen a major spike in bank credit, with a new report showing that outstanding credit to the sector stood at Rs 9,959 crore as of October 2025—a whopping 28 per cent year-on-year jump from Rs 7,782 crore in October 2024.
This (nearly) twofold increase in bank credit, from an outsanding value of Rs 5,364 in October 2020, is a major indicator of steady growth across various facets of India's maritime sector, a businessline report said, citing RBI data.
More specifically, the report points out that this could be attributed to two changes—an increase in cargo volume and handling efficiency at India's major ports, and the scale up of investments into indigenous shipbuilding.
According to Prashant Vashisht, Senior Vice President & Co-Group Head at ICRA Ltd, investments into indigenous shipping were scaling up because major international shipbuilders were already operating at "near-full capacity", and were booked for orders for at least 3-5 years—which limited India's ability to quickly buy new vessels from them.
“Sustained capex by existing ports and capacity addition through new integrated port-led logistics projects has materially strengthened the operating environment for shipping," noted Bhavik Vora, Partner and Transportation & Logistics Industry Leader at Grant Thornton Bharat.
He connected this to a 7-8 per cent year-on-year cargo volume growth at India's major ports in April-November 2025.
"Core segments such as crude, containerised freight, and bulk commodities have translated into more predictable revenues and cash flows, leading to improved credit assessment by lenders,” Vora added.
The report offers another statistic to show the impact of these sustained and growing revenue streams: a 30 per cent year-on-year jump in outstanding loans of the ports industry from Rs 5,823 crore in October 2024 to Rs 7,588 crore in October 2025.
This jump is said to be one of the highest among the infrastructure industries.
Notably, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways (MoPSW) on Saturday released operational guidelines for two major shipbuilding initiatives—with a total corpus of Rs 44,700 crore—aimed at boosting domestic power in this sector.
These will be valid until March 31, 2036, with an in-principle extension planned until 2047.
Both the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Scheme (SBFAS) and the Shipbuilding Development Scheme (SbDS) are part of a comprehensive maritime package of Rs 69,725 crore, approved by the Centre in September 2025
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