Every hour a ship sits waiting at an Indian port, unable to berth, unload, or depart, is a cost that doesn't vanish. It gets quietly added into freight rates, passed along the supply chain, and eventually shows up in the price of goods on your shelf. That is why a single number—average vessel turnaround time—deserves more attention, especially in the maritime circle.
The average vessel turnaround time at India’s major ports had also improved to a best-ever 48 hours in FY 2023-24 from 52.9 hours in FY 2021-22. But Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, on Thursday revealed to the Parliament that in FY 2024-25, the turnaround time ticked back up to 49.4 hours.
Why does that reversal matter?
One and a half hours might seem trivial. But at scale, it is not. India's major ports collectively handle over 855 million tonnes of cargo per year. Every additional hour of turnaround time across that volume translates into millions of dollars in demurrage costs, idle ship-time, and delayed cargo. It is also a signal that operational efficiency gains can stall or reverse when infrastructure doesn't keep pace with traffic growth.
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In India, turnaround time is reported differently for all vessels versus container vessels versus bulk carriers.
Earlier, the shipping ministry reported that for container vessels specifically, turnaround time has fallen to 30 hours in 2024-25 from 43 hours in 2014-15.
The rail-sea-rail model at Paradip
One of the most promising interventions the ministry has flagged is the Rail-Sea-Rail (RSR) model at Paradip Port in Odisha.
The model, already operational, allows cargo to move by rail to Paradip, transfer to a coastal vessel, sail to a destination port, and transfer back to rail. This bypasses congested road stretches entirely and reduces the volume of goods competing for berth time at major gateway ports. Paradip's coastal cargo numbers have contributed meaningfully to the overall coastal cargo growth to 196 million MT in FY 2024-25 from 171 million MT in FY 2021-22.
According to Sonowal, the Maritime India Vision 2030 roadmap looks to reduce average container dwell time to under 40 hours by 2030 and shift more cargo to coastal and inland waterway routes to reduce congestion pressure at major ports. Investments in new berths, AI-based berth allocation, the e-Samudra vessel registry, and multi-modal connectivity projects are all pointed in the same direction.
This also means that the FY 2024-25 turnaround time reversal is not a crisis. The shipping ministry seems to have taken it as a reminder that port efficiency is not a problem you solve once, but one you manage continuously.