Vizhinjam: The port that almost wasn’t built
Thiruvananthapuram: Zhen Hua 15, a ship twice the length of a football field, made history last week when it docked at the Vizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport in Kerala after sailing down the East China Sea with a cargo of cranes for the port. For the Zhen Hua 15, it was just a 42-day journey, but for India’s newest mega port, the arrival of the Chinese ship marked the end of a three-decade-long wait. The port, which is fully owned by the Kerala government, is being built by Adani Vizhinjam Ports Pvt.
Ltd, a subsidiary of Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ), India’s largest private sector port operator. It is expected to be fully operational by December 2024, and will be able to handle 18,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containerized cargo, which will eventually be expanded to 3 million TEUs. The port is a dream project for the government and the private sector.
It is the first to come up on Kerala’s shores in 96 years, and is expected to boost commerce as well as tourism. For the central government, it is a big move to grab a large share of the lucrative transshipment market, and save on precious foreign exchange. A container transshipment port allows smaller feeder vessels to transfer cargo onto larger ships for delivery to final destinations.
Shipping lines save money with larger vessels, as freight prices are lower for exporters and importers. Currently, due to depth limits, feeder ports in India cannot accommodate larger cargo ships. The port is also crucial to Adani Ports’ goal of becoming the world’s largest port operator by 2030.
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