The Sagarmala Programme

Sagarmala is the flagship programme of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW). It promotes port-led development along India’s coast.

When did it start?

• The Union Cabinet approved the Sagarmala concept on 25 March 2015.
• PIB describes the programme as launched in March 2015.
• The National Perspective Plan for the coast followed. The Prime Minister released it at the Maritime India Summit on 14 April 2016.

What is it trying to do?

• Lower logistics cost by moving more cargo through ports, coastal shipping, and inland waterways.
• Modernise ports so ships spend less time waiting.
• Build industry near ports so goods are made close to where they ship out.
• Improve coastal livelihoods through fishing harbours, skills, and tourism.

Which ministry runs it?

MoPSW runs Sagarmala. It does not sit under the Ministry of External Affairs. Exam setters like to swap the ministry, so remember the name.

India depends on the sea for trade. But goods still move through a patchy mix of ports, roads, and rail.

How much of India’s trade goes by sea?

• About 95% of trade by volume and about 70% by value moves through maritime routes. PIB gave these figures in April 2026.
• India has 12 major ports. These come under the Centre.
• India also has over 200 non-major ports. State maritime boards or state governments control these.

How long is the coastline?

• A PIB release of March 2025 gave the coastline as 7,500 km.
• A PIB backgrounder of April 2026 gave it as about 11,099 km.
• Both figures appear in official text. The larger number is the newer one. Check which one a question uses.
• Potentially navigable waterways are about 14,500 km in both releases.

What does logistics cost India?

• Older articles quoted logistics cost at 13-14% of GDP. That figure came from outside studies.
• A DPIIT-NCAER study released in 2025 put it at 7.97% of GDP for 2023-24. It was the first official, India-specific estimate.
• Use the 7.97% figure when a question asks for the official estimate. Treat 13-14% as the older popular number.

The official count has changed over time. This is a favourite trap, so read it slowly.

How many pillars are there today?

PIB’s 2025 and 2026 releases say projects fall under 5 pillars and 24 categories. The five are:

1. Port Modernisation and New Port Development. This upgrades ports and builds new ones. 2. Port Connectivity Enhancement. This links ports to the hinterland by road, rail, and waterway. 3. Port-Led Industrialisation. This builds industrial clusters near ports. 4. Coastal Community Development. This covers fisheries, coastal tourism, and skills. 5. Coastal Shipping and Inland Waterways Transport. This shifts cargo to water.

Why do some pages say four?

• PIB 2025 and 2026 releases list five pillars.
• If a question says “four pillars”, it may follow an older list. Read the options against the five above.

What is not a pillar?

• Naval expansion and defence shipbuilding is not a pillar. It appears in none of the official lists above.
• Coastal tourism is only one part of the Coastal Community pillar.

Where does Vadhavan fit?

Vadhavan is a new major port in Palghar district, Maharashtra. The Cabinet approved it in June 2024 at about ₹76,200 crore. It is a new major port, the kind of project the first pillar covers.

Sagarmala is not one big building site. Many agencies build the projects. A small set of bodies plans and tracks them.

Which bodies guide the programme?

• National Sagarmala Apex Committee (NSAC). It was set up in May 2015. It gives policy guidance and reviews progress.
• Maritime States Development Council (MSDC). It brings the Centre and coastal states together.
• State Sagarmala Committees. They pick and track projects in each coastal state and UT.

Who builds the projects?

Major ports, central ministries, Indian Railways, NHAI, IWAI, state governments, and state maritime boards. PIB lists all of these as implementing agencies.

How are projects paid for?

• PPP. Private partners are preferred wherever a project can earn revenue.
• IEBR. Major ports use their own internal and extra-budgetary resources.
• Grant-in-aid. Projects with high social value but low profit get partial grants. Examples are fishing harbours and coastal skilling.
• Equity. The Sagarmala Development Company Limited (SDCL) was set up in August 2016 to hold equity in project companies.

What is SMFCL?

• In June 2025, SDCL was restructured as the Sagarmala Finance Corporation Limited (SMFCL).
• PIB describes it as India’s first NBFC focused on the maritime sector.
• It approved loans of about ₹4,300 crore in December 2025.

Progress counts differ between releases. Each release counts at a different date, so always note the date.

What do the dated snapshots say?

• 19 March 2025 (PIB): 839 projects worth ₹5.79 lakh crore. Of these, 272 were complete, worth about ₹1.41 lakh crore.
• 24 March 2026 (PIB): about 845 projects worth ₹6.06 lakh crore. Of these, 315 were complete (₹1.57 lakh crore), 210 were under implementation, and 320 were being planned.
• Lok Sabha reply, July 2026 (as reported): 79 projects worth ₹5,374.5 crore complete under the Sagarmala scheme (the grant scheme). 54 projects worth ₹4,538.2 crore were under implementation.

Why do the counts not match?

• The first two count the whole programme, across all agencies.
• The July 2026 reply counts projects under the Sagarmala grant scheme only.
• Do not mix the two sets in one sentence.

What happened to port capacity?

• The same Lok Sabha reply, as reported, gave capacity at major and other ports as 2,818 MTPA by March 2026. It was about 1,400 MTPA in 2013-14.
• That is roughly a doubling.
• At THE WEEK Maritime Conclave on 25 September 2026, the minister gave a different figure. Major ports alone had 1,728 MTPA, up from 873 MTPA a decade earlier.
• The two numbers measure different sets of ports. Major ports are only one part of the total.

What happened to ship waiting time?

• PIB’s April 2026 backgrounder says average vessel turnaround time fell from 96 hours in 2014 to 49.5 hours in 2025.
• The Ministry also reported a fall from 52.87 hours in FY 2021-22 to 49.47 hours in FY 2024-25.
• Major ports handled a record 915.17 million tonnes in FY 2025-26, up 7.06%.

What else has it delivered?

• Eleven fishing harbour projects worth ₹1,057 crore are complete. They benefit over 30,000 fishermen.
• Inland waterway cargo rose from 18.10 MTPA in FY 2013-14 to 145.50 MTPA in FY 2024-25.
• Nine Indian ports are among the world’s top 100. Visakhapatnam is in the top 20 for container traffic.
• Sagarmala estimates a cumulative employment potential of about 1 crore jobs. That is 40 lakh direct and 60 lakh indirect.

Sagarmala 2.0 is the planned next phase. Its numbers have moved, so the date of each figure matters.

What was announced in March 2025?

• At the 4th NSAC meeting on 19 March 2025, Minister Sarbananda Sonowal described Sagarmala 2.0.
• PIB said it has a new focus on shipbuilding, repair, breaking, and recycling.
• It was “backed by ₹40,000 crore in budgetary support”.
• It aimed to catalyse ₹12 lakh crore of investment over the next decade.
• The same meeting launched the Sagarmala Startup Innovation Initiative (S2I2).

What does PIB say in April 2026?

• PIB calls Sagarmala 2.0 a proposed scheme.
• It “envisages” budgetary support of ₹85,482 crore and total investment of ₹3.6 lakh crore.
• The aims include port modernisation, port-led industry, better connectivity, coastal shipping, and island and coastal communities.

Was it approved by the Cabinet?

• The sources found for this lesson do not show a Cabinet decision on Sagarmala 2.0.
• The March 2025 announcement came from an NSAC meeting, not from a Cabinet note.
• The April 2026 PIB text still calls the scheme proposed.
• Do not write “Cabinet approved Sagarmala 2.0 in 2025” without a Cabinet press release.

What about the jobs figure?

• PIB’s figure of about 1 crore jobs is for the Sagarmala Programme as a whole.
• It is not a Sagarmala 2.0 target.

Sagarmala sits inside a larger plan. Several schemes have similar-sounding amounts, so keep them apart.

What are the long-term visions?

• Maritime India Vision 2030 (MIV 2030). The Prime Minister launched it at the Maritime India Summit on 2 March 2021. It sets goals for ports, shipping and waterways to 2030.
• Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 (MAKV 2047). It builds on MIV 2030. It targets 10 billion tonnes of annual port handling and a place among the top five shipbuilding nations.

What is the shipbuilding and maritime package?

• In September 2025, the Cabinet approved a package of ₹69,725 crore.
• Its parts include the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Scheme (corpus ₹24,736 crore), the Maritime Development Fund (₹25,000 crore), and the Shipbuilding Development Scheme (₹19,989 crore).
• Media often round the package to “₹70,000 crore”.
• It is separate from Sagarmala’s own budget.

What is the Coastal Cargo Promotion Scheme?

• Budget 2026 announced it. It aims to double the share of coastal shipping and inland waterways in the freight mix from about 6% to 12% by 2047.
• The Maritime Gateway page calls it a proposed scheme.
• The government is preparing a renewed policy and incentive drive.

What is MISHTI?

• MISHTI restores mangroves. The Environment Ministry runs it, not MoPSW.
• It targets about 540 sq km over 2023-28 in nine states and four UTs.
• It complements the coastal-community aim but is not a Sagarmala scheme.

Vizhinjam is a deepwater port near Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. It shows what port-led growth looks like on the ground.

What happened on 2 May 2025?

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated Vizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport to the nation.
• PIB gives the cost as ₹8,800 crore.
• The Prime Minister said its capacity would triple in the coming years.

Why does a transshipment port matter?

• Transshipment means moving a container from one ship to another at a hub.
• The Prime Minister said 75% of India’s transshipment had been done at foreign ports.
• Vizhinjam is meant to keep part of that business, and its earnings, inside India.

What makes the site special?

• Its natural draft is about 20 metres, so very large ships can enter.
• It sits about 10 nautical miles from the main east-west shipping channel.
• It was built as a public-private partnership between the Adani group and the Kerala government.

Is it a Sagarmala project?

• The Prime Minister linked port upgrades to Sagarmala in the same speech.
• Do not call Vizhinjam a Sagarmala-funded project unless a question gives that link.

What is the safe way to describe it?

• PIB calls it India’s first dedicated container trans-shipment port.
• Write “first dedicated container transshipment port”, not “first deep-water port”. The PIB wording is the safer one.

Three recent items belong in your notes. One of them has changed since many pages were written.

What is E-Samudra?

• Minister Sonowal launched E-Samudra in Mumbai on 8 August 2026.
• It is a single-window platform for seafarer and maritime services. It integrates more than 60 services.
• It builds on an earlier rollout in 2025.

What is the new capacity target?

• On 25 September 2026, the minister spoke at THE WEEK Maritime Conclave.
• He said the Ministry targets over 700 MTPA of additional port capacity by 2030.

What happened to the blue bond?

• SMFCL planned India’s first blue bond for 28 September 2026. The issue was ₹600 crore for 10 years.
• On 29 September 2026, it withdrew the issue. Investors asked for a higher coupon than SMFCL would offer.
• The lender wanted to price below 8%. Bids came in between 7.69% and 8.44%. Bids totalled ₹525 crore across 26 bids.
• So the bond was announced and bids were taken, but the issue was withdrawn.

Questions on Sagarmala are usually factual. The traps are swaps and rounding.

• Ministry trap. The answer is MoPSW, not External Affairs or Commerce.
• Year trap. 2015 is the start. Do not pick 2013, 2017, or 2019.
• Pillar trap. Naval expansion is never a pillar. Check whether the stem says four or five pillars.
• Money trap. Keep ₹40,000 crore (Mar 2025 plan), ₹85,482 crore (Apr 2026 proposal), ₹25,000 crore (Maritime Development Fund), and ₹69,725 crore (package) apart.
• Capacity trap. 2,818 MTPA covers major and other ports. 1,728 MTPA is major ports only.
• Date trap. Always attach a date to counts of projects and capacity.

Quick recap

• Must know: launched March 2015, run by MoPSW, aims at port-led growth.
• Good to know: five pillars in current PIB text. Sagarmala 2.0 focuses on shipbuilding, repair, and recycling.
• Great to know: SMFCL’s blue bond was withdrawn on 29 September 2026.