Which one of the following statements about India’s ports and maritime trade is not correct?

Introduction / Context:
This question checks conceptual and factual understanding of India’s maritime infrastructure and trade. India has an extensive coastline, numerous major and non major ports and a very large share of its external trade moves by sea. The Government prepared a Maritime Agenda for 2010–2020 that set ambitious port capacity targets. The learner must identify which of the given statements does not match these well known facts. Such questions combine geography, economics and infrastructure planning and are important for examinations that include Indian economy and general knowledge sections.

Given Data / Assumptions:

India is a maritime nation with a coastline and many ports.
There are specific numbers of major and non major ports in official classifications.
A large proportion of India’s trade by volume and value uses sea routes.
The Maritime Agenda 2010–2020 fixed a numerical target for port capacity for the year 2020.
The options state approximate values for coastline length, trade shares and port capacity targets.

Concept / Approach:
The first three options describe standard textbook facts. India indeed has 12 major ports and around 200 non major or intermediate ports. Almost 95 percent of India’s foreign trade by volume and around two thirds by value move through maritime transport. The coastline is often quoted as about 7516 kilometres including island territories, so approximately 7500 kilometres is acceptable. The fourth option concerns the capacity target in the Maritime Agenda. In reality, the Agenda set a very high target of around 3200 million tonnes of port capacity by 2020, that is, in the range of thousands of million tonnes, not merely 300 million tonnes. Hence the statement mentioning a 300 MT target is incorrect.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Evaluate option A. Official data states that India has 12 major ports administered by the central government and roughly 200 non major ports under state governments. Therefore this statement is essentially correct. Step 2: Evaluate option B. Various economic surveys mention that about 95 percent of India’s external trade by volume and about 68 percent by value are carried by sea, so this statement is also correct. Step 3: Evaluate option C. Standard figures give the Indian coastline as about 7500 kilometres, sometimes slightly more when island coastlines are fully included, therefore this statement is correct. Step 4: Evaluate option D. The Maritime Agenda 2010–2020 aimed to increase port capacity to more than 3000 million tonnes, around 3200 million tonnes, by 2020. Step 5: The value 300 million tonnes is far too low and does not match the official target, so option D is the incorrect statement.

Verification / Alternative check:
An alternative way to verify is to think about the scale of India’s trade. With such a large and growing economy, a target of only 300 million tonnes of port capacity would clearly be inadequate. Existing capacity before the Agenda itself was already in the range of several hundred million tonnes. Therefore, the Agenda logically had to aim for several thousand million tonnes to accommodate growth. Consulting standard sources like the Maritime Agenda document or summaries in the Economic Survey would confirm that the target was around 3200 million tonnes, which makes the value of 300 million tonnes clearly incorrect.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Here “wrong” refers to why they are not the answer to the question asking for the incorrect statement.
Option A is factually right, so it cannot be chosen as the incorrect statement.
Option B correctly captures the high dependence of India’s foreign trade on shipping by quoting the widely used figures for trade by volume and value, so it is not the wrong statement.
Option C accurately reflects the approximate length of the Indian coastline and therefore is also not the incorrect option.

Common Pitfalls:
A common mistake is to misremember numerical values, especially when they involve large numbers. Some candidates misread 3000 million tonnes as 300 million tonnes and then treat the smaller number as correct. Others may be unsure about the exact number of non major ports and suspect option A. It is helpful to note that in policy documents, targets for national capacity tend to be ambitious and often expressed in round thousands rather than in a few hundred million tonnes. Carefully comparing orders of magnitude helps avoid such errors.

Final Answer:
The statement that is not correct is option D, because the Maritime Agenda 2010–2020 actually set a target of port capacity in the range of more than 3000 million tonnes, not merely 300 MT by 2020.