Consider the following statements about the seaports in India: 1. There are 4 major and 25 minor seaports in India. 2. The major ports are under the administrative control of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. 3. The minor ports are under the jurisdiction of respective State Maritime Board/State Government. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Correct — D, 2 and 3 only. Statement 1 is the falsifier and its numbers are wrong on both sides. India has twelve major ports, not four, and something of the order of two hundred notified non-major ports, of which several dozen handle cargo — nothing like twenty-five. Statement 2 is right: the major ports are administered by the Union government through what has been called the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways since November 2020, and eleven of the twelve are run by port authorities under the Major Port Authorities Act, 2021. Statement 3 is right as well: every other port is a State subject in practice, managed by a State Maritime Board where one exists and otherwise by the State government directly.

• (a)1, 2 and 3 — This accepts statement 1 along with the other two, which would put the number of major ports at four. There are twelve, and the number of non-major ports runs into the hundreds.
• (b)3 only — Statement 3 is correct, but so is statement 2. The Union ministry's control over the major ports is not in doubt.
• (c)1 and 2 only — It keeps the one statement that fails. The administrative point in statement 2 is sound; the counting in statement 1 is not.

The two-tier system comes from the Constitution itself. Major ports are in the Union List, so Parliament legislates for them and the Union ministry administers them. Ports other than major ones are in the Concurrent List and are in practice left to the States, which run them through maritime boards. The label major is legal rather than descriptive — a port is major because it has been declared so, not because of its size, and several non-major ports now handle more cargo than some major ones.

In an item of this shape the counting statement is where to look first, because numbers are the easiest thing to falsify and examiners know it. Twelve major ports is a figure worth memorising outright: Deendayal, Mumbai, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Kamarajar, V. O. Chidambaranar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Syama Prasad Mookerjee at Kolkata. Once statement 1 is gone, only options (b) and (d) survive, and the choice between them is whether statement 2 is true — which it plainly is. The privately developed ports that dominate the headlines, Mundra and Krishnapatnam among them, are non-major ports under State jurisdiction, which is a useful reminder that the classification is about law and not about tonnage.

• India has twelve major ports and roughly two hundred notified non-major ports.
• Major ports fall under the Union List; ports other than major ones fall under the Concurrent List and are run by the States.
• The Ministry of Shipping was renamed the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways in November 2020.
• The Major Port Authorities Act, 2021 replaced the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963 for eleven major ports; Kamarajar Port is run as a company.
• Jawaharlal Nehru Port is India's largest container port; Mundra, the largest private port, is a non-major port under Gujarat's maritime board.

• Accepting a plausible-looking count. Four and twenty-five are both far from the real figures.
• Assuming major means large. It is a legal declaration, and some private non-major ports handle more cargo.
• Using the old name Ministry of Shipping in a post-2020 context; it has been the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways since November 2020.

As a statement set on port administration, as a question on which port is major or non-major, or through the constitutional division of subjects.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  How many major ports does India have?

  • (a)9
  • (b)11
  • (c)12
  • (d)13

  Answer(c) 12 — the rest of India's roughly two hundred notified ports are non-major ports under State jurisdiction.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Ports other than major ports fall under which List of the Seventh Schedule?

  • (a)Union List
  • (b)State List
  • (c)Concurrent List
  • (d)They are not listed

  Answer(c) Concurrent List — major ports are in the Union List, and everything else is concurrent, which is why State Maritime Boards run them.