By Japan K Pathak, Ahmedabad, 9 May 2013

Gujarat’s coastline is 1600 km long.

We were taught this in school, we were taught this in college, we heard this for dozens of times in various conferences, seminars, speeches, presentations, and we read it for 100s of times in newspapers and magazines…..

Years back I heard late author Chandrakant Bakshi in Ahmedabad, who in his speech said that 1600 was just a round figure and it was wrong. The actual figure he said was 1640 km!

But recently while accessing some official documents of union government, I found that 1600 is actually not an authentic figure, and 1640 certainly not!

The length of Gujarat’s coastline is shown as 1214.7 km in number of official/scientific/defense/research documents of Government of India.

Whether it’s Naval Hydro graphic Office report, or Indian Space Application Centre(ISRO) report on shore line change, or Central Water Commission report, or parliament records, they all suggest that the length of Gujarat’s coastline is 1214.7 km!

And mismatch in popular figure and official figure is not just in the case of Gujarat. We compared two versions for other states too. Maharashtra’s coastline is 720 Kms if we go as per the popular version, however in official records of union government the length is described as 652.6 km! Popular version says Karnataka has 320 km long coastline, but official version suggests 280 km! And mismatch was constant when we checked all other coastal states too!

Following are the official figures sourced from union government’s latest documents:

The total length of coastline along each of the coastal State/UT in the country is as follows:

Sl. No. State / UT Length of
coastline (in km)
(i) Gujarat 1214.7
(ii) Maharashtra 652.6
(iii) Goa, Daman and Diu 160.5
(iv) Karnataka 280.0
(v) Kerala 569.7
(vi) Tamil Nadu 906.9
(vii) Pudducherry 30.6
(viii) Andhra Pradesh 973.7
(ix) Odisha 476.4
(x) West Bengal 157.5
(xi) Lakshadweep Islands 132.0
(xii) Andaman & Nicobar Islands 1962.0
Total Coastline 7516.6

And we wonder, which figure is true? 1600 km or 1214.7 km? Well, there’s a huge difference, and therefore the question is interesting. Any clarity?