( 1 ) GUJARAT is the principal Maritime state in India. The Gujarat ports play major role in the economic development of the State and due to their favourable location, they serve a vast hinterland over northern and Central India. It has a long coastline of 1600 km. which is almost 1/3 of coastline of India. The State has 40 ports, one of them being Kandla which is a major port and 11 of them are classified as intermediate ports and 28 are classified as minor ports. This petition is concerned with the port of PIPAVAV which comes under the category of All weather Intermediate Ports capable of providing direct berthing facilities for ocean going vessels. The port is in the close proximity of Shiyal and Savai Bet. This port has practically no siltation and therefore it is a naturally sheltered deep water and the tranquilt port and therefore capable of providing direct berthing for ocean going vessels. It is noticed that the Kandla port which is the actual major port is handling large volume of cargo traffic and has reached saturation point as ships have to que and the waiting period is long. The existing ports in gujarat and Bombay are heavily overloaded and some of the