UPSC Mains 2023 GS1 Q14: India’s Coastline — Resource Potential & Hazard Preparedness

India has a coastline of about 7,500 km, touching 9 states and 2 union territories, plus island territories in the Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep.

India’s Exclusive Economic Zone, covering about 2.3 million square kilometres, gives sole rights to fisheries resources across a vast marine area, supporting one of the world’s largest fishing sectors.

Continental shelf basins like Bombay High off Mumbai hold major offshore oil and gas reserves, making the coastline central to India’s domestic energy production.

Coastal and offshore areas hold placer mineral deposits (like monazite and ilmenite) and construction-grade sand, both economically significant along stretches of the coast.

India’s coastline hosts major ports handling the overwhelming majority of the country’s trade by volume, making it central to both domestic connectivity and global trade links.

Coastal states draw major tourism revenue from beaches and marine ecosystems, and coastal/offshore wind potential is increasingly being developed as a renewable energy resource.

The eastern coast, facing the Bay of Bengal, sees more frequent and often more intense cyclones than the western coast, though Arabian Sea cyclone activity has been rising too.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated parts of India’s southeastern and Andaman coastline, exposing major early-warning and evacuation gaps at the time.

Large stretches of India’s coast face erosion, worsened by rising sea levels and reduced sediment supply from dammed rivers, threatening coastal settlements and infrastructure long-term.

India built the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre after 2004, and has strengthened cyclone forecasting through the India Meteorological Department, cutting cyclone casualties sharply compared to decades ago.

Coastal zone regulation enforcement is uneven, mangrove buffers that naturally reduce storm impact have shrunk in several states, and evacuation infrastructure in some low-income coastal areas still lags behind forecasting capability.

Comment on the coastline’s resource potential across fisheries, energy, minerals, trade, and tourism, then assess hazard preparedness by naming the main hazards (cyclones, tsunamis, erosion) alongside concrete institutional progress and remaining gaps.