Indian Ports are redefining themselves through steady year-on-year growth and capacity building, with infrastructure and technology upgrades. The sector continues to register robust growth, with India’s major ports recording 855 metric million tonnes (MMT) of cargo in FY 2024-25, marking a 4.3 per cent year-on-year increase.
Our major container port, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA), the throughput surpassed 7 million TEUs, and at bulk ports like Deendayal Port and Paradeep Port, the cargo handled crossed the 150MMT mark.
Over 900 acres of port land were allocated for port-led infrastructure with investment potential pegged at Rs 68,780 crore.
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Concurrently, and interestingly, non-major ports are expanding rapidly, accounting for nearly half of national traffic and outpacing major ports in container volume growth.
The Indian port sector can be said to be purposefully striding towards a strategic plan of reaching a milestone capacity expansion of about 500-550MTPA every year by FY 2028.
This snowballing growth story is watched by industry and global players alike and is attributed largely to the increasing private sector participation in Indian ports. Cumulative growth in maritime trade and enhanced geopolitical positioning of India are also catalysts.
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become a buzzword in infrastructure projects, and they have emphatically augmented the Indian port sector, predominantly by attracting infrastructure investment, improving operational efficiency, and creating capacity expansion.
The PPP model has yielded an investment of Rs 3,986 crore in FY 2024-25in major ports as compared to Rs 1,329 crore in FY 2022-23, and has driven modernisation and automation of old legacy ports and terminals.
Let’s look at some numbers to support the PPP catalyst effect in the Indian port sector. Over the decade, operational efficiency has significantly gone up, and industry veterans wholly attribute it to the healthy participation by the private sector. Output per ship berth day (OSBD) rose from 12,458 tonnes to 18,304 tonnes, the average turnaround time (TRT) improved by 48 per cent, falling from 96 hours in FY 2014-15 to 49.5 hours in FY 2024-25 (global player, Port of Singapore, has a TRT of 19.2 hours). Pre-berthing detention (PBD) time at ports has fallen from 5.02 hours in FY 2014-15 to 3.8 hours in FY 2024-25.
Through the landlord port framework, private operators now manage a growing share of cargo handling—with the government targeting up to 85 per cent private participation by 2030—which has improved service quality and competitiveness.
PPP projects approved under programmes such as Sagarmala have added capacity of over 550MTPA and accelerated new berth and terminal development.
Across non-major ports, state and private partnerships have similarly expanded capacity and attracted capital, reinforcing India’s strategic aim of scaling port capacity toward 10,000MTPA by 2047.
These investments have bolstered India’s trade competitiveness and underpinned sustained growth in both container and bulk cargo volumes. Despite the measurable progress achieved through PPP models in the Indian port sector, several structural and operational pain points persist.
PPP 1.0 in maritime
Public–Private Partnerships, since the 1990s, have vastly improved capacity creation, efficiency, and private investment in Indian ports, but continue to face issues related to legacy, policy, and risk allocation. Further, contractual and coordination challenges continue to constrain outcomes. A major concern has been the uneven risk-sharing of traffic between the Government and the private player.
Private operators often bear demand risk beyond their control, causing severe financial pressure, especially in the older BOT terminals established in the early 2000s. In port PPPs, when actual cargo volumes handled by a terminal fall beneath the estimated levels, it leads to revenue deficits, which in turn can severely affect the financial credibility of the private entity, leading to a loop of disagreements and a never-ending legal imbroglio.
Port businessesare usually determined by global trade cycles, spot decisions by liners, prevailing competition, hinterland connectivity, and operational efficiencies. It is also affected by government policy and prevailing tariff structures. Many of the above are not fully controllable by a terminal operator, and recent geopolitical events have only intensified these pain points as uncertainty reigns.
Rigid concession agreements, lack of provisions for mid-course corrections, delays in approvals, and paperwork non-compliance have aggravated the issues. Land and environmental clearances, apart from inadequate hinterland connectivity, add up toexcessivedelays in projects, causing severe cost overruns.
Port conferences and Round table discussions on PPP have often pointed out that several port concessions suffer from ambiguity in roles between port authorities and concessionaires, mostly due to inadequate due diligence at the drafting stage.
This, coupled with evolving governance structures due to the shift to the Major Port Authorities framework, creates frictions. A weak dispute-resolution efficiency continues to limit investor confidence. The persistence of these issues highlights structural gaps in the PPP framework.
Are these issues solvable?
Addressing these issues will require greater flexibility in the concession agreements, balanced risk sharing, and stronger institutional capacity. Essentially, the Government and the private sector need to collaborate to tackle both micro-level port issues and macro-level policy and project development challenges.
Global examples like the Port of Rotterdam (PoR) can provide valuable lessons, where PPP has led to a complete transformation of the port. The Port of Rotterdam Authority’s shift toward a landlord model highlights the transformative potential of PPP in port governance.
By separating land ownership and infrastructure management from terminal operations, PoR has successfully used public investment along with private sector innovation. Many studies compare PoR's hybrid model based on performance, growth, and innovation—showing how it quickly adapts to digitalisation, sustainability, and energy transition needs. As ports worldwide face similar challenges, Rotterdam’s PPP-driven landlord model presents a promising, scalable blueprint for modernising ports in the future.
PPP 2.0 in maritime
PPP in Indian ports is not just about the synergy, private investment, and capital, but a multi-pronged approach that will create institutional maturity in the long run.
The ‘partnership’ component in PPP is to be followed to the letter- by incorporating contractual flexibility, robust dispute resolution mechanisms, and balanced risk sharing. These may be aligned with long-term trade and logistics objectives. If India aims to become a $10 trillion economy by FY2030, the port sector can prove to be a major driver in the panorama of heightened economic activity.
The author is professor at the School of Maritime Management, Indian Maritime University, Chennai.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.