Kerala’s 500 days challenge: Can ‘God’s own country’ become a Gujarat?

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Thiruvananthapuram/Chennai: After decades of planning and years of delay, the Vizhinjam International Transhipment Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport, India’s deepest natural port and its only container transshipment hub, located 25 kilometres from Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram, is ready for operation. Developed by Adani Ports and Logistics, the port’s trial run began in July this year.

Its record since then has been impressive, going by its handling of what the industry calls twenty-foot equivalent unit or TEUs, a measure of the size of containers. In just a couple of months, the port has unloaded 75,000 TEU containers from large mother vessels and loaded them into smaller feeder vessels—they sailed to smaller ports. It has already exceeded the 60,000 TEUs target it had set for itself till March 2025.

Now, the bad news. Connectivity to the port is not ready yet. A narrow single-lane road links the port to the Thiruvananthapuram-Kanyakumari highway a few kilometres away.

This road is incapable of carrying even large trucks, let alone container trailers. “It will take another 12 to 18 months for proper connectivity," says an Adani Vizhinjamport spokesperson. The Vizhinjam port, in a way, is a reflection of Kerala’s problem today and the hope it holds for its future.

The state’s economy is in a crisis. Its gross state domestic product (GSDP) is not growing fast enough (see chart). Its unproductive expenses far exceed its revenues.

Borrowings bridge the gap. This has put the state perpetually in debt. The famed Kerala Model of Development that ensured significant improvement in human development parameters such as life expectancy, literacy levels and population control is now throwing