The country's first International Container Trans-shipment Terminal (ICTT) in the Special Economic Zone at nearby Vallarpadam Island is all set to be dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, tomorrow.

The total cost of the first and second phase of the terminal is pegged at around Rs 6,250 crore. When completed, the terminal will be able to handle 4 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of cargo a year. The first phase of the project is ready to handle one million TEUs a year.

The project will be operated by the Dubai Port World (DPW) and aims to make Kochi a key centre in the shipping world, reducing the country’s dependence on foreign ports to handle trans-shipment requirements, Cochin Port sources said.

Once fully developed, the ICTT, a part of the expansion project at the Cochin Port, would be the largest individual terminal in India.

As part of the project, the country’s longest railway bridge — 4.62-km-long — was set up over the Vembanad Lake, thereby establishing rail connectivity to Vallarpadam from the mainland.

Port sources said ICTT will generate additional employment opportunities, facilitate investment flow to the tune of Rs 7,500 crore and help in the development of port-based industries to transform Kochi into an economic hub.

However, the project is being commissioned at a time when the 326 families that were evicted for setting up the terminal at Vallarpadam are yet to get a roof over their head. The former Supreme Court Judge, Mr V.R. Krishna Iyer, has said the move to commission the project without rehabilitating the evictees was ‘shameful.’

The ICTT will provide facilities for handling mother ships and thereby obviate the need for transshipment of Indian containers through other countries.

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