Andhra Pradesh Plans Rs 30,000 Crore Dugarajapatnam Ship Hub

Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal said Andhra Pradesh is ready to grow into a globally competitive maritime and logistics centre, speaking at the 31st CII Partnership Summit in Visakhapatnam. He set out the state's case on the strength of its roughly 1,053-kilometre coastline along the Bay of Bengal, its access to international shipping lanes and its closeness to the big manufacturing and trading economies of Asia.

Shipbuilding cluster at Dugarajapatnam

The centrepiece is a proposed greenfield shipbuilding cluster at Dugarajapatnam. It has in-principle approval under the National Shipbuilding Mission, envisages investment of about Rs 30,000 crore and targets an annual capacity of 1.2 million gross tonnes. A Centre-State special purpose vehicle bringing together the Andhra Pradesh Maritime Board and the Visakhapatnam Port Authority has been set up to carry the project.

Four greenfield ports under construction

Work is on at four major greenfield port projects - Mulapeta, Machilipatnam, Ramayapatnam and the Kakinada SEZ - which are expected to add cargo-handling capacity and pull industry around them. Projects worth more than Rs 560 crore had their foundation stone laid at Visakhapatnam Port on Wednesday. The state already has working ports at Visakhapatnam, Gangavaram and Krishnapatnam. Visakhapatnam Port handled a record 91.17 million tonnes of cargo in FY 2025-26, about 10% more than the year before, and has grown for four years running since FY 2021-22.

The national backdrop

Sonowal said India has set itself the goal of joining the world's top five shipbuilding nations, and that Rs 70,000 crore has been allocated as financing support for shipbuilding and other maritime activity. Sagarmala, Maritime India Vision 2030 and the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 together envisage investment of Rs 80 lakh crore. He also named the Rs 10,000 crore Container Manufacturing Scheme for home-made containers, a proposed Rs 10,000 crore Coastal Cargo Promotion Scheme for the country's 12,000-kilometre coastline, and the Rs 80,000 crore deep-draft, all-weather mega container port coming up at Vadhavan in Maharashtra. Four Global Maritime Investment Summits have drawn investment of about Rs 25 lakh crore into the sector.

Three ambitions for the state

The minister listed three goals for Andhra Pradesh: becoming a leading destination for port-led development under the Saptadhara roadmap for Viksit Bharat 2047, growing into a competitive shipbuilding and ship-repair hub, and serving as India's eastern maritime gateway to ASEAN, East Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Smart ports running on artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, automation and digital logistics platforms, he said, would decide efficiency in the next phase. 'If Hyderabad became Cyberabad, Andhra Pradesh today has the opportunity to become India's Maritime Gateway to the East,' he said.