India has about 7500 km of coastal lines with a significant potential to harvest marine energy. Tidal energy, one of the types of marine energy that emerges has a practical option to supply reliable and renewable energy to the Indian coastal areas. This paper focuses on tidal current turbines that can be adapted to various potential sites available along Indian coasts. Tidal energy projects all over the world and the type of turbines used by their applications are presented. This is followed by preliminary analysis of the Indian sites that includes current speeds and depth, possible adoption of current tidal current technology to those sites and the likely power output. Finally, challenges facing those who adopt the current technology are briefly discussed. © 2021 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.