India's Maritime & Shipping Reforms

India rewrote the legal foundations of its ports-and-shipping economy in 2025, retiring statutes that dated to the British era. In a single stretch of Parliament the government cleared four connected laws — a new Indian Ports Act, a Merchant Shipping Act, a Carriage of Goods by Sea Act and a Coastal Shipping Act — then layered on Sagarmala 2.0, a shipbuilding-first spending push, and stood up the sector's first dedicated lender, SMFCL. The common thread: move more freight along India's own coastline, build and register more ships under the Indian flag, and pull port governance into line with global maritime norms as the country aims at Viksit Bharat by 2047.