Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways · to August 2026
What the Nation Ships
India’s major ports — the twelve big public gateways from Deendayal and Paradip to JNPA and Visakhapatnam — handle the bulk of the country’s seaborne trade: crude and POL, coal, containers, iron ore, fertiliser and more. This tracks the cargo they move, month by month, and how it splits port by port. Traffic reached a record 915 MT in FY2025-26, up about 7%, and the monthly run has stayed strong into FY2026-27. Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways data.
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FY2025-26FY2026-27provisional / estimated
Cargo handled · month by month
What you’re looking at. India has twelve major ports — the big public ports run under the central government (Deendayal, Paradip, JNPA, Visakhapatnam, Mumbai, Chennai and others). They handle a little over half of the country’s total seaborne cargo; the rest goes through state and private “non-major” ports such as Mundra and Adani’s network. This tracks the cargo traffic at the major ports in million tonnes (MT): the Cargo handled view is month by month, the Port by port view splits the latest full year across the twelve. Figures are the Ministry’s monthly reports; each month reconciles to the official cumulative and the year to 914.7 MT. Cargo traffic counts tonnes handled (loaded plus unloaded), so it is not directly comparable to railway freight loading, which counts originating tonnes only.
Source: Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways — monthly “Cargo handled at Major Ports” reports and the Indian Ports Association · PolityPolicy · India, in Numbers · by Tushar Gupta
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