India Shines with Port Turnaround Time but Long Journey Awaits

From Sluggish to Swift-India’s Port Turnaround Time and the Global Race for Maritime Efficiency

By P SESH KUMAR

NEW DELHI, August 2, 2025 — India appears to have pulled off an impressive feat by reducing its average port turnaround time from a languorous four days in 2014 to just 0.9 days today (World Bank Logistics performance index report, 2023)—outperforming global logistics powerhouses like Singapore, UAE, Germany, and the USA. This transformation, ostensibly driven by (Union Government would like to rightfully claim) port digitalisation, procedural reforms, and infrastructure upgrades under the Sagarmala Programme and the PM Gati Shakti Master Plan, marks a critical leap for India’s trade efficiency.

But behind the headline could lie a nuanced story of federal coordination struggles, state-level execution deficits, underutilised funds, and patchy implementation.

Sagarmala: Riding the Blue Economy or Sailing in Shallow Waters?

When Sagarmala was first launched in 2015, it promised to reinvent India’s relationship with its coastline. With over 7,500 km of shoreline and 200+ notified ports, the logic was sound: use port-led development to create logistics corridors, manufacturing clusters, and coastal employment hubs. On paper, it was India’s Marshall Plan for maritime revival. But a decade on, how well has it delivered?

The numbers speak in mixed tones. Of the originally envisioned 802 projects with a cumulative investment of ₹5.5 lakh crore, fewer than 250 have been completed as of early 2024. Many others are understood to have been stuck in various stages of planning, land acquisition, or environmental clearance.

Several coastal economic zones (CEZs) have been announced, but hardly any appear to have taken off with real manufacturing output. The grand vision of port-led industrialisation may have mostly remained tethered to PowerPoint decks.

The funding pipeline, although nominally robust, has suffered from fragmented ownership. A bulk of the projects were expected to be executed by state governments, port authorities, and private sector players with limited central funding.

But the ground reality has been a sluggish trickle, with several states complaining of poor coordination and overlapping jurisdictions. Coastal states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have advanced selectively, while others like Odisha and West Bengal cite persistent delays in project approvals, land clearance, and last-mile connectivity.

Implementation bottlenecks also abound—port modernisation has moved faster than port connectivity. Inland waterways, a key component of the vision, have seen uneven progress. Labour unions in legacy ports, unclear PPP guidelines, and weak inter-agency coordination have further stymied rollout.

Additionally, while over ₹1.2 lakh crore of investments have reportedly been mobilised, many projects are mere extensions of existing port expansions rather than genuinely new Sagarmala-induced infrastructure.

What’s missing is independent evaluation. No comprehensive third-party audit of outcomes has been published by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) or an international body like the World Bank. Without a clear performance scorecard benchmarking outputs versus initial targets, it’s hard to assess whether the economic gains are structural or incidental. Anecdotal success stories abound, but systemic assessment is conspicuously absent.

PM Gati Shakti: A Super-Map with Super Ambitions or a Hyperloop of Bureaucratic Red Tape?

Announced with much fanfare in October 2021, the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan was billed as a digital infrastructure revolution. The idea was both seductive and overdue: create a GIS-based digital platform integrating all key infrastructure ministries—roads, railways, ports, airports, power, telecom—so that planning is coordinated, duplication is avoided, and projects are tracked in real time.

At its heart lies the promise of multimodal connectivity—ensuring that a cargo container doesn’t languish at a port due to a missing last-mile road or rail link. Gati Shakti was to be the big data-driven answer to India’s chronic infrastructure fragmentation. But can a digital dashboard really transform on-ground execution?

The Master Plan identified over 1,400 key projects across ministries and states. The funding, unlike Sagarmala, is not a separate budgetary allocation but dovetails into existing schemes like Bharatmala, Dedicated Freight Corridors, and Sagarmala itself.

That’s both a strength and a weakness—it avoids parallelism but also dilutes accountability. Who owns the Gati Shakti output? Is it the Ministry of Commerce, the logistics division of DPIIT, the central ministries, or the states?

As per government disclosures, Gati Shakti appears to be 208 big‑ticket infrastructure projects collectively valued at ₹15.39 lakh crore as assessed under the framework by October 2024.

Additionally, 434 projects spanning key logistics corridors including port connectivity, energy, cement, and minerals appear to have been identified with an outlay of ₹11.17 lakh crore. While this signals the scale of the plan, explicit data on actual expenditure so far is not disclosed in public documents.

The capital budget outlay referenced includes a broad allocation of ₹11.11 trillion (i.e. ₹11.11 lakh crore) for infrastructure sectors that fold under Gati Shakti—but no scheme‑specific spend figures are stated separately.

Execution, again, for the substantial part rests with the states—and that’s where the gears start grinding. Many states lack institutional capacity to use the digital tools offered under the Gati Shakti platform. Some have appointed State Gati Shakti Cells, but others lag in onboarding data layers, updating project progress, or integrating utilities and environmental clearances into the unified planning matrix.

Inter-departmental silos still persist despite the promise of seamless digital overlay.

Moreover, there has been no robust independent review of whether projects tagged under Gati Shakti have genuinely been expedited or simply relabelled. There’s no published timeline-to-completion comparison between pre- and post-Gati Shakti periods. While anecdotal mentions of project cost savings and faster clearances have been made in ministerial briefings, the absence of third-party validation leaves the actual impact open to speculation.

This is where the model could learn from international examples. The EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) program or Japan’s MLIT-led logistics digitisation initiatives have baked in periodic performance audits and beneficiary feedback loops. Gati Shakti, to be truly transformative, needs not just real-time dashboards but real-time accountability.

Way Forward: Turning Metrics into Momentum

Sagarmala and Gati Shakti are not flawed in vision—they may be suffering from execution inertia and accountability gaps. The way forward lies in merging ambition with ground reality. First, a time-bound third-party performance evaluation of both schemes is essential.

Whether conducted by the CAG (most preferable for independence), NITI Aayog, or an external multilateral like the World Bank, such an audit must assess not only completion rates but economic outcomes—cargo handled, transit time saved, jobs created, and costs reduced.

Second, state capacity building is key. States must be financially and technically empowered to own projects. Digital platforms like Gati Shakti must be made mandatory for infrastructure clearances and project design, with training provided to nodal officers and departmental staff.

Third, transparency and public data access must improve. A live dashboard tracking project-wise status, delays, budget overruns, and beneficiary impact must be placed in the public domain. This would not only promote transparency but also crowdsource pressure to deliver.

Lastly, India must treat port turnaround time as a starting gate, not a finish line. The real race lies in creating a seamless, multimodal, cost-efficient logistics chain from dockyard to doorstep. That means fixing not just ports but the vast ecosystem around them—trucks, trains, warehouses, regulators, and digital customs. Efficiency is not a number—it is a culture.

The CAG’s Radar: Why a National Performance Audit Is Long Overdue

No grand public investment is complete without scrutiny—and no scrutiny is credible unless it’s independent, fact-based, and nation-wide. That’s where the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India must step in with a full-fledged, performance-focused audit of India’s port ecosystem and the two marquee infrastructure schemes driving it—Sagarmala and PM Gati Shakti. For too long, the data floating around has come from self-congratulatory ministry reports, fragmented dashboards, or conference presentations.

What India needs now is a grounded, issue-based, investment-to-outcome audit stitched together across the Union and States. And only the CAG has the constitutional clout, field-level presence, and institutional memory to pull it off. Incidentally, the CAG appears to have formally announced that Sagarmala and related coastal infrastructure will be audited under its Blue Economy thematic audit cycle (2024–27)

The audit must not limit itself to counting berths added or roads built. It must go deeper—into timelines, cost escalations, logistics outcomes, stakeholder satisfaction, and economic impact. And it must be truly national in scope—covering all major and minor ports, state-led infrastructure projects under Gati Shakti, and coastal industrial corridors that were the soul of the Sagarmala dream.

Importantly, it must separate attribution from coincidence—was the port turnaround improvement really due to policy action, or a post-COVID drop in global shipping congestion?

The audit objectives should include assessing whether the original program goals (as per Cabinet notes and DPRs) have translated into tangible outputs and outcomes, whether the investments led to measurable improvements in multimodal connectivity, and whether timelines and costs adhered to government-approved benchmarks.

It must also audit the operationalisation and use of digital tools like the Gati Shakti National Master Plan GIS platform—are state and district officials really using it to redesign transport infrastructure, or is it just another dashboard for Delhi?

As for audit criteria, these should include measurable benchmarks such as: percentage reduction in port dwell time, logistics cost as a percentage of GDP, rate of cargo throughput growth per ₹1,000 crore invested, percentage of multimodal linkages completed within timeline, and digital integration across departments.

The CAG should also refer to international yardsticks such as the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, UNCTAD’s port connectivity metrics, and OECD audit guidance on infrastructure delivery to evaluate India’s comparative performance.

Finally, the outcome evaluation must ask the hardest question—has the Indian exporter or importer actually benefited? Has container congestion reduced? Have freight costs declined? Have end-to-end supply chains become more predictable and affordable? Have inland transport bottlenecks eased or just migrated elsewhere?

The CAG can also adopt a two-tiered approach—first, conduct a national compliance and performance audit of Sagarmala and Gati Shakti, and then commission social and economic impact studies through independent third parties such as NCAER, IIMs, or logistics think tanks. Only a triangulated approach will yield real accountability.

In doing so, the CAG will not only uphold its role as the guardian of the public purse, but also cement its reputation as a force multiplier for good governance in the infrastructure space. In an era of trillion-rupee infrastructure dreams and dashboard-driven policymaking, India needs the assurance that what’s being built is not just fast—but also smart, inclusive, efficient, and impactful. And that assurance can only come from an audit that is honest, hard-hitting, and holistic.

(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)

Follow The Raisina Hills on WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn

About The Author