The Indian coastline, spanning 1,200 islands and 7,500 kilometres, is the bedrock of a vibrant economy built on centuries-old relationships between the region’s cities and surrounding civilisations, communities and natural elements. Crucial to India’s strategic objectives in the Indian Ocean and beyond, this coastline attracts significant investments. It is, therefore, imperative that India develop a risk mitigation strategy along its coast and find ways to navigate the region’s numerous administrative jurisdictions, urban centres, villages, special economic zones, military zones and strategic assets to ensure sustainability at scale. The creation of a network of coastal districts can help identify coherent policies that can be adopted by relevant state governments to address these challenges.
India has nine coastal states, and six Union territories, with 66 coastal and island districts that are home to more than 200 million people. This includes prosperous states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal. Major cities along the coast, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Surat, and Visakhapatnam, together contribute almost 25 per cent to India’s GDP . The coast is home to about 12 major and 200 non-major ports handling 1.4 billion metric tonnes of cargo, connected to freight and logistics infrastructure, as well as road and rail corridors. An estimated 30 naval bases and 42 coast guard stations are located along the coast to protect India’s sovereignty.
India’s blue economy supports almost 95 per cent of all businesses in the country through transportation, and its estimated worth is around 4 per cent of the country’s GDP. India is among the world’s largest exporters of fish, rice, coconut, fruits, pepper and other coastal commodities that are dependent on stable natural ecosystems. It is also the third largest fish-producing nation in the world, with a fleet of over 2,50,000 fishing boats sustaining the livelihoods of roughly 4 million fisherpeople. Erratic monsoons and warming tropical waters have already endangered these livelihoods.
Coastline in crisis
India was ranked third among the top 50 nations that face the most danger from climate change in 2050. The country’s coastal zones are exposed to both land-sourced and marine hazards such as shoreline erosion, tropical cyclones, storm surges, algae blooms and biowaste. Moreover, almost 5,700 km of India’s 7,500 km coastline is prone to cyclones and tsunamis. The estimated economic costs emerging from the impact of climate change on coastal infrastructure range from $27 billion in the case of Mumbai to $43 million for the Baleshwar district of Odisha.
Repeated floods in Chennai have caused economic devastation that has severely weakened the regional economy. According to a 2015 United Nations global assessment report on disaster risk, multi-hazard disasters cost India almost $10 billion annually, of which about $7 billion was lost due to floods alone. Rising sea levels also threaten India’s landmass, with 235 square kilometres of its land lost to coastal erosion between 1990 and 2016.
The effects of worsening climate disasters have been exacerbated by human activity. Reclamation, dam construction, sand mining, sewage disposal and human settlements have increased the rate of coastal erosion, decreased the coastal slope, and increased flood risk across India. While communities in urban areas can bounce back faster, small towns and rural communities along the coast are forced to migrate, thereby weakening the resilience of the coastal economy.
The region itself has enormous flood mitigation and carbon sequestration potential and is home to an incredibly biodiverse ecosystem. Both, however, need careful development. Given their economic, ecological and geopolitical importance, India’s coastal zones need a coordinated policy response. The resilience of all stakeholders in coastal areas needs speedy strengthening.
The Indian government’s Mission Sagarmala, conceived in 2015, and the Draft Policy Framework for India’s Blue Economy, prepared in 2020 by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (PM-EAC), are significant steps in the direction of creating a unified policy approach. Mission Sagarmala has prioritised port modernisation, community development and coastal tourism. The PM-EAC has highlighted 7 priority areas: National Accounting Framework for Blue Economy and Ocean Governance Priority; Coastal Marine Spatial Planning and Tourism; Marine Fisheries, Aquaculture and Fish Processing, Manufacturing, Emerging Industries; Trade, Technology, Services and Skill Development; Logistics, Infrastructure and Shipping; Coastal and Deep-Sea Mining and Offshore Energy; and Security, Strategy and International Engagement. These themes spell out the importance of India’s coast while highlighting the challenges of coordinated and cooperative arrangements among coastal stakeholders.
Among the key constraints to coastal resilience are overlapping and disputed jurisdictions between local, state, and Union governments, the armed forces and various public sector enterprises and lack of systematic engagement with local communities. Mumbai, for example, has a coastline of about 149 km, with numerous agencies and public sector units managing the city’s seashore. The Bombay Port Trust, Maharashtra Maritime Board, Union Ministry of Shipping, Indian Navy, the Coast Guard, the State Government of Maharashtra, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority – all have jurisdiction over parts of Mumbai’s coastline.
This has caused significant jurisdictional conflicts and inter-agency disputes, resulting in poor coordination and hampering of public service delivery. While Mumbai is a global megapolis and commands huge resources, the smaller towns and villages along India’s coastline are far more vulnerable.
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Collaboration is key
India’s coast is in a conundrum. It cannot be administered under a single jurisdiction, but coastal districts must work closely with each other to share knowledge and augment capacity. Both the frequency and intensity of climate impacts are increasing. Groups with common interests can share their learnings and best practices.
A network of coastal districts can consolidate the experiences and efforts of multiple stakeholders, creating communities of practice to build cross-sectoral coalitions and identify solutions for policy gaps and blind spots. A coastal network can inform public policy about the interdependent future of the coast. Such an effort will also provide learnings for similar networking in Himalayan districts.
A network of coastal districts will catalyse administrators at various levels along with economic and civil society actors across various stakeholder groups. Rather than creating brick-and-mortar institutions for such purposes, the government can rely on the effectiveness of “peer-to-peer” learning and collective action across political and administrative boundaries, recognising that the coast is first and foremost a geography and ecology.
A coastal network can be a speedy way to build capacity among coastal communities, sharing tried and tested solutions and fostering partnerships to address common challenges. India’s coast is too important to lead such a fragmented and precarious existence.
Jagan Shah is CEO, Infravision Foundation and Vibhav Mariwala is an independent researcher. He tweets @VibhavMariwala. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)