New port project sparks protests

Residents of Keni, a coastal village in Karnataka, are resisting the construction of a new port on their shoreline.
As the government pushes ahead with the project, residents remain deeply concerned about an uncertain future.
The proposed port is expected to have significant environmental consequences and disrupt the traditional fishing practices that sustain the community.

“You see that island next to the jack-up barge? That’s where the temple of our ancestral deity, Kukudeshwara, stands. When the port comes, everything from our village to that island will be gone,” says Smitha D., pointing towards the distant islet on the horizon. A fisher from Keni village in Ankola, Uttara Kannada, Smitha is not the only one apprehensive about the beach and the fisher hamlet.

In November 2023, the Karnataka Maritime Board (KMB) awarded JSW Infrastructure — one of the largest commercial port operators in India — the Letter of Award (LOA) to develop an all-weather, deep-water, greenfield port at Keni under a public-private partnership. The project, with an estimated cost exceeding Rs. 4,000 crores is primarily intended to handle coal and coke cargo for industries in northern Karnataka and southern Maharashtra.

The Keni port is one of 20 maritime projects proposed by the KMB since its formation in 2018. This comes in addition to the 29 maritime initiatives sanctioned under the Sagarmala scheme in Karnataka in 2024. The sudden rise in port development across the state raises an important question: Are our import and export demands that high?

“There has been no evidence to show an increase in demand for imports or exports. Certainly not high enough for so many ports across Uttara Kannada,” says V.N. Nayak, a retired professor of Marine Biology from Karnataka University, Karwar.

A request for information under the RTI Act, filed by Mongabay India in 2022 revealed that, apart from Karwar Port, no minor port in Karnataka has seen any rise in exports or imports over the past five years. In fact, the data shows that two ports experienced a decline in business, while three others — including Belekeri Port, which lies right next to Keni — have not handled any cargo since 2018.

“For the last few years, people in Uttara Kannada have been asking the government for a multispeciality hospital in the region. And the government has said there is no space for one. So how are they finding space for all these ports?” asks Prakash Mesta, a marine biologist working in the region.

As maritime projects continue to accumulate along Karnataka’s coastline, their ripple effects remain largely unacknowledged by both state and central governments. Speaking specifically about Keni, Mesta says, “In my decades of experience working in Uttara Kannada, I can say that Keni has the cleanest and healthiest marine ecosystem in the region.”

The proposed port threatens not just to alter this reality, but to erase it entirely.

In January 2025, authorities installed a jack-up barge off the coast, following protests against the Keni port. Residents of Keni walked into the sea to dismantle the barge, if the government failed to take action. Image by Vaishnavi Suresh.

Altering an ecosystem

According to official maps and documents from the Karnataka Maritime Board, the proposed port will require all of Keni beach to be dredged. Land will be reclaimed from the sea, effectively wiping out the beach as it exists today.

“Given how clean Keni is, it is home to healthy corals. All of them will suffocate when the land is reclaimed,” Mesta informs Mongabay India. “Various fish species use Keni and the adjacent pocket beach as breeding grounds. With the port coming up, they’ll have to find other grounds.”

As an estuarine area, Keni is not only home to marine species but also several freshwater species at the Keni creek, a tributary of the Gangavali river. This includes 12 species of mangroves, and diverse species of zooplankton and phytoplankton.

The construction of the port — specifically the breakwaters and dredging — poses long-term, and potentially irreversible, threats to the environment and biodiversity in Keni. It also risks dismantling local livelihoods and displacing the indigenous fisher communities that have lived here for generations.

“They say they will only construct a road. But we know what happened in Mundra, Ratnagiri and so many other places,” says Sanjeev Balegar, a fisherman and resident of Keni.

According to the KMB proposal, the Keni port will be constructed on reclaimed land, with a new road running through the village to facilitate cargo transport. The project claims that there won’t be any land acquisition or displacement required apart from road and rail infrastructure. While this may be technically true, previous port and industrial projects suggest a different outcome.

“Keni is so well known for fishing that there is a government school in the village to teach fishing,” says Mesta, referencing the Government Fisheries School in Keni. But with the beach set to be dredged and reclaimed, the shoreline — the primary access point for local fishers — will disappear, effectively cutting them off from the sea.

Policemen watch as traditional fishers work. Most residents in Keni found out about the port only in late 2024, almost a year after the news of the port became public. Image by Vaishnavi Suresh.

Civil society gather against the port

Most of the village residents in Keni found out about the port only in late 2024, almost a year after the news of the port became public. “I first heard about it in the news when the project was being given to JSW infrastructure,” Balegar says. He warned others about the outcome, but it took time to convince them. “In October or November, officers came to our village to survey the land and sea. That is when we learnt about the project,” says Smitha.

The residents mobilised soon after to voice their opposition. In November 2024, they went on a protest march from Keni to the Tehsildar’s office in Ankola and submitted a written petition demanding the scrapping of the proposed port. Some continued on to Karwar, taking their protest to the Uttara Kannada Zilla Panchayat with the same demand.

A few months later, in January 2025, the authorities installed a jack-up barge off the coast as part of the geo-technical survey for the port. On February 24, residents of Keni walked into the sea, determined to dismantle the barge, if the government failed to take action. The protest quickly escalated, and police were called in to control the situation. In the ensuing scuffle, three women were injured. “Whoever, be it the MLA, politician or zilla panchayat officer, comes, we won’t be scared of them. We will continue to protest,” says Girija Soma, one of the women injured during the protest.

Once a largely pristine and peaceful beach, Keni is now under constant surveillance, with police stationed along its shores.

Following the protest, Section 144 was imposed in Keni. For the next 10 days, fishers were forbidden from taking their boats into the sea, effectively cutting them off from their livelihood. With no fish to catch or sell, they went without food. “It’s been a week since we’ve earned anything or eaten anything except stale gruel,” says Vanitha M. “Our children refuse to go to school because they’re scared of the police presence,” adds Revathi Ramesh, another resident.

A few days later, the fishers were allowed back into the sea, but the uncertainty of what lies ahead continues to loom large.

“Whoever, be it the MLA, politician or zilla panchayat officer, comes, we won’t be scared of them. We will continue to protest,” says Girija Soma, one of the women injured during the protest. Image by Vaishnavi Suresh.

An uncertain future

Largely composed of traditional fishers, fishing in Keni is a communal activity. The workers come together to lay and haul a giant fishnet from the shore, while three dugout canoes navigate through the waters to ensure the nets are properly laid out. “When they take away the beach for the port, they’re also taking away the place where we fish together, the spot where we enter the sea and park our canoes,” Balegar explains.

With the beach gone, the fishers will be forced to find a new spot to park their canoes which could lead to conflict within the community. Even if a new entryway is provided, there’s a growing concern that venturing into deeper waters could push them into Navy-controlled territory, resulting in further legal complications.

Having witnessed numerous fisher rights movements and development projects that led to displacement, Balegar is clear about what’s at stake: “The first thing we will lose are the relationships.”

Beyond that, the port construction will bring an influx of migrant labour to Keni. “Our village will be filled with people we don’t know and people we won’t feel safe around,” Soma says.

Keni residents have been opposing the port from the start, knowing very well how forced displacement works, and refusing to become victims of it. While the government claims there will be no displacement or land acquisition for the project, the village residents now suspect they may be made to relocate without any compensation or resettlement support. The government neither confirms nor denies these possibilities.

“Can a coastal village, stripped of its beach and its people, still be the same village?” Soma asks.

Banner image: Fishermen at work in Keni village in Ankola, Uttara Kannada, Karnataka. Image by Vaishnavi Suresh.