Visakhapatnam Port Gets Rs 560 Crore Works and New Promenade

Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal was at Visakhapatnam on 11 November 2026, where he handed a new waterfront walkway to the public and set the foundation stones of four fresh works at the port. Together the new works add up to roughly Rs 560 crore. The minister also spoke with port staff and thanked Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu for the state government's support. Port Chairperson Jasmeet Singh Bindra was among those present.

The Port Promenade

The promenade stretches about 710 metres, or 2,330 feet, beside the water, running from the Venkateswara Temple up to the International Cruise Terminal. It covers close to 5.5 acres and was built at a cost of about Rs 19 crore. For the first time, residents of the city have a safe, regulated place from which to watch ships and port work. It carries a waterfront walkway, two view decks, one of them a Titanic-style viewpoint, a park, a public plaza, a children's play area, a food court and visitor parking. It was raised on land the port already owned, so cargo handling was left undisturbed, and its position beside the cruise terminal is expected to draw cruise passengers as well.

Berth contracts and a bigger sewage plant

Three of the new foundation stones belong to contracts for operating and maintaining cargo terminals already in place, worth about Rs 580 crore in all. They cover the WQ-1 and WQ-1RE berths, the WQ-2 and WQ-3 berths, and the EQ-3 berth. Operators must fit the berths with cranes and conveyors along with environmental controls, and are expected to employ around 500 local people. The fourth stone was for raising the port's sewage treatment plant from 10 million litres a day to 15 million, a new 5 million litre unit included, at a cost of roughly Rs 11 crore. Treated water is used to keep dust down, wet the roads and sprinkle the stockpile yards, which feeds the ministry's Harit Sagar green port effort.

A record cargo year

Sonowal said the port moved a record 91.17 million metric tonnes of cargo in 2025-26, about 10 per cent more than the year before and its fourth year of growth in a row. Between 1 April and 31 October, cargo was up by 4.44 million metric tonnes, or 8.88 per cent, on the same months a year earlier. Four public-private partnership projects worth some Rs 800 crore are under construction at the port and should be commissioned by 2027. Visakhapatnam has one of the deepest container terminals among India's major ports, with a permissible draft of 16 metres, and is shifting to a landlord-port model to shorten vessel turnaround and cut logistics costs. The projects were launched just before the 31st CII Partnership Summit-2026, hosted by Andhra Pradesh on 12 and 13 November on the theme Navigating New World Order: Trade, Technology, Trust.