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The changing role of small and medium-sized ports in coastal Andhra, India

K. Bhupal and M. Reddi Bhaskara Reddy

The littoral state of Andhra Pradesh is located in the South-Eastern fringe of the Indian Peninsula (12o 37’ – 19o54’N and 76o 46’-84o 46’E) which has a fairly longer coastline along the Bay of Bengal (one of the marginal seas of the Indian Ocean) has flourished with a large number of small and medium-sized ports enjoying the maritime trade and commerce, since historical times. As large number of rivers debouches into the Bay of Bengal from Andhra Pradesh, the river mouths are the favourable sites for the ports to flourish. The development of spits, bars and shoals along the coastline, the progradation of the Krishna-Godavari deltas towards the sea, change in the course of the rivers etc., besides the human interference, such as development of land transport, cessation of mining activity and decline of dynasties are some of the causes for almost all the small and medium-sized ports to lose their significance with the lone exception of Visakhapatnam port being a natural one.