Vizhinjam Port: Delegation to meet PM

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

New Delhi, Aug 27: Pressure is again building up to take up the development of a much-awaited Deep Water International Container Trans-shipment Terminal at Vizhinjam, 16 km south of Thiruvananthapuram on the west coast.

After a series of agitations, representations, and scientific studies, a decision was taken to develop this port, which has several unique advantages like proximity to international shipping route and East-West shipping axis, availability of 20 m contour within a nautical mile off the coast, minimal littoral drift along the coast avoiding the need of any maintenance dredging, flexibility in design and expansion being a Greenfield project, and short distance from Thiruvananthapuram city and international airport.

Though the work for the development of this port was awarded to a consortium of Zoom Developers of Mumbai and Kaidi Electric Company and China Harbour Engineering Company of China, the Centre has declined security clearance to the developers.

Meanwhile, Union Shipping Minister T R Baalu announced that Vizhinjam would not be a Central project and it was upto the Kerala Government to develop it.

Many political leaders in Kerala like Mr K Karunakaran said that the project was being scuttled under pressure from Tamil Nadu, which wanted to develop Kolachal instead of Vizhinjam. But Shipping Ministry sources said it was dropped because of the lack of security clearance.

Now an all Party delegation from Kerala is scheduled to meet the Prime Minister on August 31 seeking early clearance to the project.

The Prime Minister had earlier scheduled to lay the foundation of the project, but it did not take place as assembly elections in Kerala were announced.

The buoyant international container trade and growth in container traffic in India at a tremendous speed during the last decade had led to a trend towards agglomeration(increased vessel sizes on order). This necessitates the establishment of an international trans-shipment terminal close to the southern tip of Indian peninsula. So, it was estimated that the proposed terminal would be ideal for attracting mother vessels ranging from Post Panamax to Malacca-max in a phased manner.

The detailed traffic assessment study indicated that Vizhinjam could be configured to meet these trans-shipment requirements of the region. A container shipment economic study has established this for routing of containers economically.Transportation cost of any company would considerably come down with the development of this terminal.

The water depth of Vizhinjam would allow vessel sizes upto 12,000 TEUs. This together with a design capacity of 1.1 million TEUs going upto 4.1 million TEUs would serve this trans-shipment needs of the region.

The Kerala Government has incorporated a fully owned company, called Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd, for providing external support infrastructure, like linkages and power supply for the port.

Meanwhile, the Reliance Industries has submitted a proposal to the Kerala Government to develop the Vizhinjam port as it would supplement its retail foray. The company has plans to bring in some international operators to construct and operate the terminal.This trans-shipment hub would help Reliance to integrate the supply chain and logistics requirements of its retail initiatives as well as its Special Economic Zones.

Several other shipping players like Port of Singapore Port Authority, Dubai Ports World,Maersk and Gammon India have evinced keen interest in the development of this terminal.

UNI

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