• About Us

Fired with a spirit to bring about a technology change to the operations of ports, IWAI and other institutions, National Technology Centre for Ports, Waterways & Coasts is poised to play a major role in its sphere, thinking ideas and innovation that make a critical difference to India’s shipping industry. The journey has just begun.

Sagarmala: A major leap into port modernization

Sagarmala is a strategic and customer-oriented initiative to modernize India’s ports so that port-led development can be augmented and coastlines can be developed to contribute to India's growth. It looks towards "transforming the existing ports into modern world class ports and integrate the development of the ports, the industrial clusters and hinterland and efficient evacuation systems through road, rail, inland and coastal waterways resulting in ports becoming the drivers of economic activity in coastal areas. A technology arm providing applied research, examining and breeding the activities of port and maritime sector will augment the goals of the Sagarmala programme. In view of the above requirements, National Technology Centre for Ports, Waterways and Coasts (NTCPWC) is being set up at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) in Chennai.

IIT Madras: The foremost name in technology

Setup in 1959, IIT Madras (Chennai) has a faculty of international repute with extensive research and industrial experience. The department of Ocean Engineering combines theoretical, experimental and computational modelling skills under one roof with state-of-the-art testing facility in this field in India and has also incubated several start-ups and provides upstream technologies. IIT Madras ranked number one in India, Department of Ocean Engineering is a leading department in the field of naval architecture and ocean engineering in India. It has wide experience in Ports – Capacity Enhancement, Monitoring, Interfacing with IWT, Dredging and Software Tools; Waterways – Navigation, River and Land Protection, Intermodal Transport, Siltation, and Software Tools and Coasts – New solutions/designs, Coastal Shipping and River Mouth Closure