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K.G. Kumar

Last week, the Union Defence Ministry announced that it was clearing the project proposal for the Rs 5,348 crore international deepwater seaport and container transshipment terminal at Vizhinjam, 16 km south of Kerala’s capital, Thiruvananthapuram, close to the famed beach destination of Kovalam.

This is good news for Kerala in general and for the State’s capital in particular, and especially for the Kerala Ports Minister, Mr M. Vijayakumar, who has been a crusader for the city’s development. According to official projections, the Vizhinjam project, which forms part of the “Capital Region Development initiative”, is expected to create 5,000 direct jobs and 150,000 indirect employment opportunities.

There are still some roadblocks on the path of the project as the proposal will now have to be cleared by the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing. The previous government’s effort to seal a deal with a consortium of two Chinese and one Indian firm, selected through a global tender during its reign in 2004-06, came a cropper since the Union Government had serious security objections to the Chinese firms’ links with a Pakistan port project.

Now a consortium headed by Lanco Kondapally Power Pvt Ltd., the Hyderabad-based infrastructure and power development company, the Malaysia-based Pembinaan Redzai Sdn. Bhd. and Lanco Infrastructure Ltd, will implement the project in two phases on a build-operate-and-transfer (BOT) basis. The first phase, to be completed in three years, envisages an investment of Rs 2,400 crore.

What is it about this little fishing village that has all of a sudden hit the headlines? Vizhinjam has some unique selling propositions. For one, it is close to the international east-west shipping route and offers a 20-m contour within a nautical mile off the coast. Moreover, there is minimal littoral drift along the coast, which negates the need for regular maintenance dredging.

The proposed port’s water depth of 16 m will be increased to 18.7 m in a phased manner, which would allow vessel sizes up to 12,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard for measuring container volume) to berth comfortably. Vizhinjam is adjacent to Thiruvananthapuram city, which has an international airport and is well linked to the regional/national road and rail network, and also offers fairly developed human resource and social infrastructure.

Container traffic in India has been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 14 per cent during the last decade. This growth, coupled with the increasingly buoyant international container trade, has led to a trend of agglomeration of vessels, whose sizes have been correspondingly increasing.

This was the rationale for trying to establish an international transshipment terminal close to southern tip of the Indian peninsula to attract vessels on the east-west shipping lanes. The Vizhinjam port is designed to handle 1.8 million TEUs, rising eventually to 5.3 million TEUs.

The Government of Kerala has incorporated a fully owned company, called the Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited (VISL), to act as the nodal agency for the project and to provide external support infrastructure such as linkages and power/water supply. IL&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. is the strategic advisor for project structuring, procurement of consultants and developer(s).

The knowledge partners of the project are M/s L&T-RAMBOLL Consulting Engineers Limited, in association with ROGGE Marine Consulting GMBH, Germany, RAMBOLL, Denmark, and L&T Capital Company Limited, who have carried out feasibility studies.

On paper, needless to add, all this sounds fine. With such renowned corporates backing the project, can Vizhinjam come a cropper? Well, there is no need to go far to realize that there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. In nearby Kochi, the proposed Vallarpadam transshipment container project is yet to see the light of day, despite over a decade of serious effort and promises. And past experience with mammoth power projects shows that even the best of backers can pull out at the last minute or just jump ship. So whether Vizhinjam will transform itself from the proverbial sleepy fishing hamlet into a bustling port, is a billion-rupee question. Yet, as they say, every voyage starts with the first step.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

More Stories on : Shipping/Ports | Infrastructure | Kerala | Random Walk

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