I first got involved with the Vizhinjam Port in 1980. Those days it was only a fishing harbour. Ten years down the lane, when I was in charge of the Ports Department, Vizhinjam’s ambitions were still caught up in a few projects related to fishing.
The Vallarpadam project was proposed when I was the chairman of the Cochin Port Trust in 1985, to make Kochi competent to take on Singapore, Colombo or Dubai ports. But Vallarpadam received several setbacks as the project got delayed and mother ships got bigger. The port cannot be dredged any further. This makes Vizhinjam relevant.
Vizhinjam is blessed by two things. It is on the international maritime highway. Kochi’s advantage is its proximity to the international shipping channel. It takes ships only half a day to reach Kochi Port from the international channel. It would take less time for ships to reach Vizhinjam from the international channel. They can reach and anchor at Vizhinjam in three to six hours.
The second advantage is the depth of the sea. While Vallarpadam retains 14 metre depth by frequent dredging, Vizhijam port has 24 metre depth through the year without dredging. That makes Vizhijam more accessible to big ships than Vallarpadam.
The only negative for the project is that it has received only one tender. But this is not so much of a negative in Vizhinjam’s case. We had selected the Adani Group after notifying globally through transparent procedures. There was nothing secretive about it.
The work should have been started under Adani during the tenure of the Left Democratic Front government itself. The state government had selected Adani but the UPA government did not support it. Tamil Nadu’s clandestine involvement can be rightly suspected to be behind that denial. The Union Ports Department was handled by the DMK then.
Now situation is positive. We are assured of Centre’s viability gap funding. So the state has less liability than in 2010. Adani has solid experience in this field. The group has a presence in eight ports. They own three ports. The only negative projected against him is that he is a Modi man. That should be a good thing if it helps the project.
This is the last bus. We cannot afford to let it pass. If we drop the project due to technical reasons, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa will take it to Colachel through BJP leader Pon Radhakrishnan. Time and tide wait for no man.
If it is Adani, so be it. Let Vizhinjam Port be a reality.