Kandla Port (Deendayal Port)

Kandla Port — formally Deendayal Port Authority since 2017 — is India's second-largest port by cargo volume (after Mundra) and the largest government-owned port. Located in Gandhidham, Kutch, Gujarat, the port was opened in 1955 as one of India's earliest post-Independence port developments — built specifically to handle Punjab + Rajasthan + Haryana cargo via the western land route after the Partition severed Karachi access.

The port handles ~140 million tonnes of cargo annually — primarily liquid bulk (petroleum + chemicals + edible oil), dry bulk (grain + fertilizer), and container cargo (limited). Specialty: among India's largest petroleum + chemical handling ports, with 20+ dedicated liquid-bulk berths.

Key infrastructure: 30 berths totalling ~7 km quay length, 8 dedicated liquid-bulk berths, 4 dry-bulk berths, 3 container berths (shared with Mundra Port competition), 1 LPG terminal, 1 fertilizer berth, and dedicated rail link to Indian Railways' Kandla-Tughlakabad container freight corridor (the ICD / inland container depot system).

The port was renamed in 2017 to honor Deendayal Upadhyay, the BJP/RSS ideologue who emphasised the Western Indian land-route logistics chain. The renaming was politically symbolic and operationally inconsequential.