The Cochin Port in Kerala is all set to get India's first AI-driven immigration corridor, allowing international cruise travellers to clear border control by walking past a special camera system.
By streamlining wait times for cruise passengers, this pilot project from the Bureau of Immigration and the Indian Ports Association (IPA) marks a major push for India's Cruise Bharat Mission (CBM).
The Cochin Port move is also important to Kerala's ₹400 crore Mission Samudra project, for which the state government had earlier proposed the construction of two cruise terminals—one in Kochi and another in Kozhikode.
The two terminals were proposed when the Kerala Maritime Board (Amendment) Bill, 2026, was introduced in the state Assembly earlier this week to strengthen the board's powers and better implement Mission Samudra.
The Kochi terminal, for which it had indicated it could provide land to the Cochin Port Authority (CoPA), will likely have connections to Dubai, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Goa.
Based on the performance of the AI immigration corridor—which is currently limited to cruise passengers—the decision to expand its operations across the port, and potentially at other ports as well, will be taken later, as per a BusinessLine report.
What we know about it
Instead of having cruise travellers wait for their passports or fingerprints to be scanned at immigration counters, under the new system, they will simply have to walk through a corridor lined with special AI-driven cameras that verify their identity in real time.
However, the process won't be entirely automated, as immigration officials will oversee it throughout, and can step in for questioning people flagged by the camera system.
“The Indian Ports Association will be supporting the project through its own budget. We are considering an expression of interest or a tender to have a fair and transparent process,” Vikas Narwal, MD, IPA, said in the report.
This comes more than a year after the Dubai Airport introduced an AI-powered immigration lane, Red Carpet, at its Terminal 3 to allow eligible passengers to complete immigration checks by walking through a designated lane without having to show documents or talk to immigration officers.
This has reportedly slashed average border processing times by about 60 per cent—from 12.5 seconds to about 3.4 seconds—as it is capable of processing up to 10 passengers at a time.
The Cruise Bharat Mission push
The pilot project at the Cochin Port marks a key push for cruise tourism under phase two of the CBM to boost India's cruise passenger footfall to one million by FY 2028-29.
Phase two of the CBM, ending in March 2027, also looks at developing new cruise terminals, marinas, and destinations to activate high-potential cruise locations and circuits.
In fact, in FY 2025-26, India handled 46 foreign cruise ships and 48,514 international passengers—10 per cent of the overall figure of 212 cruise ships and 4.63 lakh passengers that it handled that fiscal.
The third phase of the CBM push—till March 2029—will focus on integrating all cruise circuits across India, while also continuing the development of cruise terminals, marinas, and destinations.
This is again where the CBM again sees eye-to-eye with Kerala's Mission Samudra, as a later phase of the state government's recently announced cruise terminal project aims to integrate the cruise network with Kerala’s 44 rivers to boost tourism and inland waterway traffic.
