New Delhi
India emerged as the world’s leading ship recycling country in 2025, increasing its share of global ship recycling from 30.1 per cent in 2024 to 35.4 per cent in 2025, according to an official factsheet released on Tuesday.
India’s ship recycling volume also rose sharply during the year, increasing from 1.86 million Gross Tonnes (GT) in 2024 to 2.99 million GT in 2025. The increase represents growth of nearly 60 per cent and highlights the country’s expanding role in the global maritime recycling industry.
The Alang-Sosiya ship recycling cluster in Gujarat remains the backbone of India’s recycling sector and accounts for around 98 per cent of the country’s ship recycling activity. Recognised as the world’s largest ship recycling hub, the cluster has an annual recycling capacity of around 6 million GT. It also produces nearly 3.50 million metric tonnes of steel annually without exploiting natural resources.
The Alang cluster is supported by authorised ship recycling yards, steel re-rolling mills and waste management facilities. The facilities have undergone extensive modernisation over the years, strengthening India’s ability to participate in the global ship recycling market.
India now plans to nearly double its ship recycling capacity to around 9 million light displacement tonnes (LDT) through the proposed development of the Alang Ship Recycling Yard. The expansion is expected to further strengthen the country’s position in the global maritime recycling industry.
The Safety Training and Labour Welfare Institute at Alang-Sosiya has cumulatively trained more than 1.5 lakh workers. Training programmes cover occupational safety, hazardous material handling and emergency response. Besides Gujarat, India has ship recycling facilities at Amar Iron Udyog in Kolkata and Steel Industrials Kerala Limited in Kerala.
The government said India’s growing recycling volumes reflect the increasing competitiveness of domestic yards. It also noted that the country has achieved the Maritime India Vision 2030 target of becoming the world’s leading ship recycling nation five years ahead of schedule.