Three major ports named green hydrogen hubs

Deendayal, Paradip and V.O. Chidambaranar anchor the green-port and green-hydrogen push, tying India's coastline to the National Green Hydrogen Mission.

What happened

• The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways told the Lok Sabha (written reply by Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal) that the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has recognised three Major Ports — Deendayal Port Authority (Gujarat), Paradip Port Authority (Odisha) and V.O. Chidambaranar Port Authority (Tamil Nadu) — as Green Hydrogen Hubs under the National Green Hydrogen Mission.
• The recognition sits inside a wider greening of port operations driven by the "Harit Sagar" Green Port Guidelines and the Green Tug Transition Programme (GTTP).
• Under GTTP, four Major Ports — Deendayal, Jawaharlal Nehru, Visakhapatnam and V.O. Chidambaranar — have placed work orders for electric tugs, beginning the switch from diesel to electric/hybrid harbour tugs.
• All Major Ports now provide 'Shore to Ship Power' (Onshore Power Supply) so that berthed vessels can switch off auxiliary engines and draw electricity from shore.
• Under the Hong Kong International Convention for ship recycling, incentives of ₹53.39 crore have been disbursed to 109 ship-recycling yards through the Ferrous Scrap Development Fund (FSDF) up to 2026.
• The reply attached a port-wise annexure detailing electrolyser plants, land allotments and a new green-hydrogen/ammonia jetty at Paradip.

Background & context

The announcement is best read as the meeting point of two distinct policy lines that the maritime ministry has been running in parallel. The first is the National Green Hydrogen Mission, the Union government's flagship programme to make India a hub for the production, use and export of green hydrogen and its derivatives. Approved by the Union Cabinet in January 2023 with an initial outlay of ₹19,744 crore for the period up to 2029–30, the Mission is administered by MNRE and targets about 5 million tonnes of annual green-hydrogen production capacity by 2030, alongside roughly 125 GW of associated renewable-energy capacity. Its two principal financial pillars sit under the SIGHT programme (Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition) — one incentive stream for domestic electrolyser manufacturing and another for green-hydrogen production. Ports matter to this Mission because green hydrogen is heavy to move and easier to export as green ammonia or green methanol; a coastline with electrolysers, storage and bunkering can become both a production cluster and an export gateway.

The second line is the ministry's own green-port agenda, framed by the "Harit Sagar" Green Port Guidelines (2023) and the longer-horizon Maritime India Vision 2030 and Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047. "Harit Sagar" sets a direction for ports to cut carbon intensity per tonne of cargo, raise the renewable-energy share in their own consumption, electrify equipment, expand green belts and reduce fresh-water use. The companion Lok Sabha reply of the same day (the near-duplicate release) spelled out the Maritime India Vision 2030 targets for Major Ports: a renewable-energy share above 60%, port equipment 50% electrified, 20% of port area under green belt, a 30% cut in CO₂ emissions per tonne of cargo and a 20% cut in fresh-water consumption per tonne of cargo, all by 2030. Recognising specific ports as Green Hydrogen Hubs is the point where these two lines fuse: the Mission supplies the demand-and-export logic, while the green-port framework supplies the on-site decarbonisation.

It helps to be precise about who does what. The administering chain runs from MNRE, which owns the National Green Hydrogen Mission and confers the "Green Hydrogen Hub" recognition, to the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, which owns the green-port guidelines and the GTTP and oversees the Major Port Authorities. The Major Port Authorities themselves — corporatised under the Major Port Authorities Act, 2021, which replaced the older Major Port Trusts Act, 1963 — are the bodies that commission electrolysers, allot land and tender the new jetties. India has 12 (now 13, counting Vadhavan) Major Ports administered by the Centre; the three named here are drawn from that set, one each on the west coast, the east coast and the southern tip.

For Prelims

• Green Hydrogen Hubs (the trio): Deendayal Port Authority — Gujarat (west coast, Gulf of Kutch, Kandla); Paradip Port Authority — Odisha (east coast); V.O. Chidambaranar Port Authority — Tamil Nadu (Thoothukudi/Tuticorin, southern coast). Recognised by MNRE under the National Green Hydrogen Mission.
• Deendayal Port (Kandla): commissioned a 1 MW electrolyser-based Green Hydrogen plant; allotted 3,400 acres for Green Hydrogen/Ammonia projects; a 3.5 MTPA jetty made compatible with Green Ammonia; Port Readiness Level (PRL) 6, progressing to 7, for bio-methanol bunkering at Kandla.
• V.O. Chidambaranar Port (Thoothukudi): allotted 205.72 acres for Green Hydrogen/Ammonia; commissioned a 10 Nm³ pilot green hydrogen plant in April 2025; developing a Green Methanol Bunkering Facility (2×750 cubic metres).
• Paradip Port: approved a Green Hydrogen/Ammonia handling jetty on PPP mode, estimated ₹797.17 crore, with a cargo capacity of 4 MTPA.
• Green Tug Transition Programme (GTTP): shifts harbour tugs from diesel to electric/hybrid; first work orders for electric tugs placed by Deendayal, Jawaharlal Nehru, Visakhapatnam and V.O. Chidambaranar ports.
• "Harit Sagar" Green Port Guidelines: the maritime ministry's framework for decarbonising port operations — renewable energy, equipment electrification, Onshore Power Supply, green belts, lower water use.
• 'Shore to Ship Power' / Onshore Power Supply (OPS): shore-side electricity for berthed ships so auxiliary engines can be switched off; now available at all Major Ports.
• Ship recycling: ₹53.39 crore disbursed to 109 ship-recycling yards via the Ferrous Scrap Development Fund (FSDF), under the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (Alang, in Gujarat, is India's main ship-breaking cluster).
• Green hydrogen — the qualifying definition: hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water using renewable electricity. It is NOT "grey" hydrogen (from natural gas/steam-methane reforming without capture) and NOT "blue" hydrogen (fossil-based with carbon capture). The colour refers to the production route, not the gas itself.
• What it is NOT: the "Green Hydrogen Hub" tag is a recognition conferred by MNRE, not by the maritime ministry; it is distinct from the green-port "Harit Sagar" framework even though both apply at the same ports. The hubs are a sub-set of India's Major Ports (centrally administered), not minor or State-run ports.
• Full comparative set to carry: green hydrogen colours — green (renewable electrolysis), grey (fossil, uncaptured), blue (fossil + carbon capture), and sometimes pink/yellow (nuclear/solar electrolysis). India's flagship vehicle is the National Green Hydrogen Mission (MNRE); its incentive arm is SIGHT.

Why it matters

Shipping and ports are among the harder sectors to decarbonise: ships burn heavy fuel oil, and the alternative low-carbon marine fuels — green ammonia, green methanol, and hydrogen itself — barely exist at scale. By anchoring green-hydrogen production and bunkering at the ports that already move the cargo, India is trying to solve two problems at once: cutting emissions inside the port estate, and positioning the coastline as a supplier of the very fuels that future ships will need. The land allotments (3,400 acres at Deendayal, 205.72 acres at V.O. Chidambaranar) and the ₹797.17-crore PPP jetty at Paradip signal that this is moving from pilot plants — the 1 MW electrolyser at Kandla, the 10 Nm³ unit at Thoothukudi — toward commercial-scale handling and export. For an energy-importing country, a domestic green-hydrogen and green-ammonia base also reduces exposure to imported fossil fuels and to the kind of West Asia supply shocks that featured elsewhere in the same day's press. The bottleneck it openly addresses is infrastructure: production capacity, storage, jetties and bunkering must come up together, which is why land, electrolysers and jetties are being announced as a package rather than one at a time.

For Mains