Building a Legal and Institutional Framework for Marine Spatial Planning in India

As India intensifies its engagement with the blue economy, the governance of marine spaces is becoming one of the most important legal and policy challenges of our time. From offshore renewable energy and deep-sea exploration to fisheries, shipping, resource conservation, and maritime security, the ocean space is increasingly subject to competing uses and demands. In this context, marine spatial planning (MSP) has the potential to serve as an important tool for ensuring that India's maritime zones are used in an economically productive, environmentally sustainable, strategically prudent, and socially just manner.

MSP refers to a scientific and participatory process through which marine areas are organised and allocated for different uses in a manner that reduces conflict, protects ecosystems, and promotes sustainable development. In simple terms, MSP attempts to answer a fundamental question as to who gets to use which parts of the sea, for what purpose, and under what conditions? Globally, MSP is identified as a tool for sustainable and integrated ocean management.

Marine governance in India remains fragmented across multiple ministries and agencies dealing with shipping, fisheries, environment, energy, offshore resource exploration and exploitation, defence, coastal regulation, and disaster management. This institutional fragmentation often leads to regulatory overlaps, policy inconsistencies and conflict among stakeholders especially with respect to use of marine spaces. MSP offers a framework capable of integrating these competing interests through coordinated planning and evidence-based decision-making.

The 2021 MSPglobal International Guide on Marine/Maritime Spatial Planning, jointly produced by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the European Commission, is widely regarded as the authoritative international technical framework for the preparation and implementation of marine spatial plans. Several countries have also put in place legislative and institutional frameworks governing the preparation, adoption, implementation, monitoring, and periodic review of marine spatial plans.

Emerging Policy Mandates

The National Policy on Marine Fisheries, 2017 represents an early policy-level recognition of MSP in India. Acknowledging the increasing competition for ocean space among fisheries, mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, maritime commerce and strategic defence uses, paragraph 51 of the policy document states that the government will consider MSP as a means of ensuring adequate space for different economic activities and reducing conflicts among competing uses. The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister in its Draft Policy Framework for India's Blue Economy (2020) recommended the establishment of a national-level authority to coordinate coastal marine spatial planning across sectors and stakeholders. The draft policy framework also envisaged preparation of a dynamic coastal marine spatial plan through an expert group, with periodic review and revision every four to five years.

More recently, certain sectoral instruments have also envisaged the preparation of MSPs. For instance, the Standard Operating Procedure for Development of Mariculture in India, released by the Department of Fisheries, GOI, in April 2026, requires the fisheries departments of coastal states and union territories to prepare MSPs in accordance with guidelines issued by the GOI, wherever applicable. The entrustment of responsibility for the preparation of MSPs to sector-specific departments through distinct policy or administrative instruments such as in the case of this SOP does not augur well for the development of an integrated approach to marine spatial planning.

Current Status of Marine Spatial Planning in India

Pursuant to a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2019, India and Norway have initiated work on the preparation of MSPs in India. The aim of this collaborative effort, which is part of the Indo-Norway Integrated Ocean Initiative, is to ensure that human activities at sea are undertaken in an efficient, safe and sustainable manner in areas such as energy, transportation, fisheries, aquaculture and tourism. The initiative is implemented by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, GOI through the National Centre for Coastal Research. As part of the initiative, pilot exercises have already been completed in Puducherry and Lakshadweep. The government has indicated its intention to progressively scale up MSP across the Indian coastline. The MoES has also developed a seven-step framework for preparation of MSP which includes stages such as engagement of stakeholders, identification of visions and goals, collection of data, analysis of interrelationships and impacts, preparation of the MSP, implementation of the plan and monitoring and evaluation.

It is apposite to mention here that Coastal Zone Management Plans, Integrated Management Plans and Integrated Island Management Plans have been legally institutionalised in India through the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2019, issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Similarly, the preparation of fisheries management plans is envisaged under various Central and State laws governing marine fisheries. However, publicly available evidence, particularly in the form of formal notifications, regarding the preparation, adoption and implementation of fisheries management plans appears to be limited. Though the plans under the CRZ Notification or fisheries laws constitute important sectoral planning instruments, they cannot substitute for an integrated marine spatial planning framework capable of addressing competing uses and interests across sectors.

Relevance of Legal and Institutional Framework for MSP

It is evident, more than ever before, that fragmented sectoral planning frameworks cannot by themselves be an adequate response to the growing and competing demands on marine space. It is high time that India implements integrated ocean governance through stronger inter-ministerial coordination and a dedicated national MSP authority with clear mandates and accountability mechanisms. Existing Indian laws governing maritime zones, shipping, exploration and exploitation of various natural resources in offshore areas, coastal regulation, fisheries conservation and marine environmental protection operate in silos. A comprehensive legal framework for MSP is therefore necessary to provide an overarching mechanism for integrating the fragmented regulatory regimes, reconciling competing uses of marine space and ensuring that decisions concerning ocean use are guided by coherent economic, environmental and strategic objectives.

A comprehensive legal and institutional framework will provide the marine spatial plans with the necessary continuity, legitimacy and regulatory certainty. It can facilitate the allocation of responsibility for the preparation, adoption, implementation, monitoring and periodic revision of marine spatial plans. The institutionalisation of stakeholder participation and inter-sectoral coordination is another advantage that can flow from a legal and institutional framework. A legal framework will also help to clarify the relationship between marine spatial plans and existing statutory and sectoral planning instruments. The development and establishment of transparent and consistent procedures for balancing competing uses of marine space and for resolving conflicts should be another major focus of the legal framework. The framework for MSP should carefully incorporate principles of equity and distributive justice and ensure that the allocation of marine space does not disproportionately disadvantage traditional and small-scale users, particularly fishing and coastal communities.

The various international guidance documents and other national legislative experiences may provide valuable insights and practical models while designing a legal and institutional framework for MSP in India. However, the external frameworks should not be blindly transplanted into the Indian legal and policy landscape. India's unique constitutional structure, federal distribution of legislative and executive powers, vast and diverse coastline, multiple maritime sectors, socio-economic dependence on marine resources, and strategic and security considerations require the development of a MSP framework that is tailored to the country's own legal, institutional, ecological, and governance realities. The framework should ensure meaningful participation of coastal states and union territories in the preparation, implementation and review of MSPs. MSP exercise in India must also be carefully aligned with its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other binding international and regional legal instruments.

The effective realisation of India's blue economy objectives will depend substantially on its ability to reconcile the growing and often competing demands on marine space. In this context, marine spatial planning, backed by a robust legal and institutional framework, can facilitate the management of competing uses of ocean space and ensure that economic development proceeds in an integrated and sustainable manner.