Cochin Port Authority: How One of India's Oldest Working Ports Runs

Cochin Port Authority, renamed from Cochin Port Trust in 2021-22, moved more than 37.75 million tonnes of cargo in 2024-25 across two islands in Kochi's backwaters. It has been doing some version of this job since 1928, when a British harbour engineer dredged a new island out of mud to build it.

• How did Willingdon Island and Cochin Port begin?
• When did Cochin Port Trust become Cochin Port Authority?
• How much cargo does Kochi's port actually move?
• What is Vallarpadam, and how does it fit in?

How did Willingdon Island and Cochin Port begin?

Before the 1920s, ships calling at Kochi anchored in open water and small lighter boats carried cargo ashore, because there was no deep-water harbour. Robert Bristow, a British harbour engineer, arrived in Kochi on 13 April 1920 under instructions from Lord Willingdon, then Governor of Madras, to fix that. Bristow's crews dredged a deep-water channel through the backwaters and used the spoil to build an entirely new island, later named Willingdon Island after the governor who backed the project. The Government of India formally took over administration of Cochin Harbour on 1 August 1936 under the Major Port Trusts Act.

When did Cochin Port Trust become Cochin Port Authority?

Cochin Port Trust was constituted on 24 February 1964. It kept that name for nearly six decades until the Major Port Authorities Act, 2021 replaced the older Major Port Trusts Act, 1963 across India's major ports; Cochin Port Trust adopted its new name, Cochin Port Authority, and a new logo in 2021-22. The change was administrative rather than physical: the same docks, the same jurisdiction over Willingdon Island and Vallarpadam, run under a governance structure with more commercial autonomy than the old trust model allowed.

How much cargo does Kochi's port actually move?

Cargo volumes have climbed steadily over the past several years:

Year	Cargo handled
2022-23	About 35.26 million tonnes
2023-24	36.32 million tonnes (a record year, up 3.01 percent)
2024-25	More than 37.75 million tonnes

A milestone from the port's container era is worth knowing too: on 27 November 1973, the vessel President Tyler berthed at Ernakulam Wharf as the first container ship to call at any Indian port.

What is Vallarpadam, and how does it fit in?

The port actually spans two islands: Willingdon Island, home to the administrative headquarters and older harbour facilities, and Vallarpadam, where the International Container Transshipment Terminal handles the deep-draft container traffic that Willingdon Island's older berths cannot. Vallarpadam's terminal has a maximum draft of 16 metres and a rated capacity of 2.5 million TEUs, run under Cochin Port Authority's jurisdiction by a private container-terminal operator. For the fuller story of why that terminal was built and what it changed for Kochi's shipping traffic, see our explainer on the Vallarpadam transshipment gateway. Willingdon Island itself, and how an entire island got built from scratch, is its own story, covered in our piece on how Willingdon Island was actually built. For the wider picture of how the port fits into the city's economy, our guide to Kochi as a business and economy hub has the rest of the context.

Willingdon Island rewards an actual visit too. The Cochin Port Maritime Heritage Museum opened in May 2014 inside what used to be the chief engineer's own quarters during the island's construction, and it holds old marine equipment and rare photographs tracing the port's history from Bristow's dredging crews through to the container era. It is a small museum, not a headline attraction, but it is the one place on the island that actually explains why the rest of it looks the way it does.