Most of coal transported via coastal shipping exits through the ports of Odisha.
The transportation of coal through coastal shipping is expected to double within the next five years, going from around 32 million tons in the last fiscal to 63 million tons in 2022-2023.
Most of the current movement is made of coal going from the Mahanadi Coalfield mines, through the Paradip and Dhamra ports in Odisha to coal-fired power plants across Andhra Pradesh and Tamil nadu.
However, bottlenecks in the Port of Paradip have hampered further growth in throughput. An expansion of the port, by 22 million tons per annum of capacity, is already planned for 2019-20, while the improvement of railway connections to both Paradip and Dhamra is expected to further improve the logistics of coastal shipping.
