Coal handling at Mormugao Port has returned to the centre of Goa’s infrastructure and environmental debate after South Western Railway reported an 11.4% rise in coal loading during the first half of the financial year. The increase is significant not only because it points to stronger freight activity, but because the state government has acknowledged that it has taken no measures to reduce the volume of coal handled at the port, even as pollution-control restrictions and complaints remain part of the regulatory record.
South Western Railway loaded 26.1 million tonnes of freight between April and September, an increase of 5.8% over the same period. Iron ore accounted for 10.17 million tonnes, while pig iron and finished steel contributed 5.95 million tonnes. Coal loading stood at 5.36 million tonnes, up 11.4% year on year. In September alone, the railway zone recorded 4.41 million tonnes of freight loading, including 0.90 million tonnes of coal, a monthly increase of 20.8% in that commodity.
Those figures establish a clear freight trend, but they do not establish how much of the coal moved through Goa. The data released by South Western Railway is zone-wide and does not provide a Goa-specific or Mormugao-specific breakdown. That distinction matters. A rise in coal loading across the railway zone cannot, on its own, be treated as a precise measure of activity at Mormugao Port. It does, however, provide the immediate context for renewed scrutiny of a port where coal handling capacity is already substantial.
The governance issue becomes sharper in the state government’s response to a legislative assembly question raised by Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai earlier this year. The government said that “no measures and actions have been taken” to reduce the volume of coal handled at Mormugao Port Authority. At the same time, it said the Goa State Pollution Control Board had not granted consent for any increase in coal handling.
Taken together, these statements describe a regulatory position in which existing activity is allowed to continue within approved limits, but expansion is not authorised by the pollution-control board. The distinction between maintaining existing consent and permitting new capacity is central to understanding the port’s situation. The government’s response does not indicate a reduction plan, a transition plan or a separate state-level intervention to bring down coal volumes. It records a decision to operate within the existing regulatory framework.
The Goa State Pollution Control Board has imposed seasonal monthly caps on coal and coke handling at berth number 7 and at the mooring dolphins. These caps are a form of operational control rather than a blanket prohibition. They regulate the quantity that can be handled during specified periods, while leaving the underlying port infrastructure and its consented capacities in place.
The board’s regulatory actions followed complaints and an inspection. It received three odour complaints on January 25, January 27 and February 8. During an inspection on February 4, officials found approximately 38,000 tonnes of thermal coal intended for NTPC stacked at berth number 7. The coal had reportedly remained there since October 2025. The inspection therefore brought two separate concerns into the same regulatory frame: the quantity of material present at the berth and the length of time for which it had been stored.
On February 17, the pollution-control board directed Adani Mormugao Port Terminal to limit coal stacks to six metres and not to store coal for more than two to three months. These directions address the physical management of coal after it reaches the port. Stack height affects how material is arranged on the site, while a storage-duration limit addresses the risk of prolonged accumulation. Neither measure, as described in the supplied report, changes the permitted annual handling capacity of the terminals.
That capacity is large relative to the specific stockpile identified during the inspection. South West Port Ltd, which operates berths 5A and 6A, is permitted to handle 5.5 million tonnes per annum of coal and coke until December 2028. Adani’s berth 7 has consent for 5.2 million tonnes per annum until January 2030. The combined consented capacity cited in the report is therefore 10.7 million tonnes per annum across the two operators.
The capacity figures should not be confused with actual annual handling. A consent allows an operator to handle material up to a specified limit under stated conditions; it does not prove that the entire capacity is being used. Similarly, the 38,000 tonnes found at berth 7 represents an inspection finding at one point in time, not a complete measure of the port’s annual throughput. The available evidence supports a discussion of the scale of the regulatory envelope, but not a precise calculation of current Mormugao coal volumes.
This is where the missing location-level data becomes an important institutional issue. South Western Railway’s freight figures show that coal movement is rising across its zone, while the state government’s response and the pollution-control board’s actions concern Mormugao specifically. Without a public breakdown showing the Goa-bound or Mormugao-linked share of that railway freight, it is difficult to connect the regional rail trend directly to activity at the port. The gap limits the public’s ability to assess whether the reported increase is being reflected locally, and by how much.
The available safeguards also indicate that regulation is focused on monitoring and containment. South West Port Ltd is reported to have a closed coal shed, while three continuous air-quality monitoring stations are cited as safeguards. These measures are designed to monitor air conditions and reduce exposure from open handling or storage. Their presence, however, does not by itself establish how effectively they are operating, what readings they have recorded or whether those readings are publicly available. The supplied material does not provide monitoring results or enforcement outcomes beyond the inspection directions.
The port’s regulatory landscape is consequently divided among several functions. The port terminals handle and store the material. The pollution-control board sets consent conditions, imposes caps and issues directions relating to stack height and storage duration. The state government responds to legislative questions and determines whether it will take additional measures to reduce volumes. South Western Railway provides zone-wide freight data, but not the local breakdown needed to isolate Mormugao’s role in that movement.
This division of responsibilities is normal for a major freight system, but it can make accountability difficult when the public concern is cumulative. A resident or local representative may experience coal movement through odour, dust, storage or traffic, while the available official datasets are organised by different administrative units. Railways report zone-wide loading, the port operates through berth-level consents, and the pollution-control board regulates specific activities and time periods. Each institution may hold only one part of the evidence required to understand the full chain.
The numbers also show why the issue cannot be reduced to a single complaint or one month of freight performance. Coal loading on the South Western Railway rose 11.4% in the April-September period and 20.8% in September. At Mormugao, two operators together have consented coal and coke handling capacity of 10.7 million tonnes per annum. The board has imposed seasonal caps, and an inspection found 38,000 tonnes of NTPC-bound coal stored at berth 7 since October 2025. These are different measurements, but together they show a system in which throughput, storage and permitted capacity must be tracked separately.
The policy question is therefore not simply whether coal handling is legal under existing consents. It is whether the consent conditions, seasonal caps, storage limits and monitoring systems provide a sufficiently transparent account of how the port is operating over time. The report does not establish that the port has breached its permitted limits, nor does it provide evidence that the monitoring safeguards have failed. It does establish that the state has not taken steps to reduce coal volumes and that the pollution-control board has not consented to an increase in handling.
That distinction leaves the central public-interest question unresolved: how should Goa manage a port activity that remains within stated regulatory limits while coal freight is rising across the relevant railway zone? The answer cannot be derived from the current railway data alone because the data does not identify Mormugao’s share. It also cannot be derived from consented capacity because capacity is not the same as actual throughput. A fuller assessment would require location-specific freight figures, port-wise handling data, air-quality monitoring results and a record of compliance with storage and stack-height directions.
For now, the evidence points to a regulatory system managing coal through conditions rather than reducing its presence. Mormugao has approved handling capacities, seasonal restrictions, storage directions and monitoring infrastructure, but the state government’s own response confirms that no steps have been taken to reduce volumes. The next developments to watch are compliance with the board’s six-metre stack limit and two-to-three-month storage direction, the operation of the seasonal caps, and whether authorities publish data that can connect South Western Railway’s zone-wide coal growth to actual handling at Mormugao Port.