When Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicates Vizhinjam International Seaport Thiruvananthapuram (VIST) to the nation on May 2, he would be formally unveiling the finished product of a raw ambition that took hold of Kerala nearly 35 years ago.

For the most part, it looked like the Vizhinjam dream was doomed to fail. In post-Independence Kerala, it was ports minister M V Raghavan under Congress Chief Minister K Karunakaran who first adopted Vizhinjam as his pet project. In 1995, an MoU was signed with Kumar Engineering Corporation for the development of the port.

This was not followed up by the CPM-led E K Nayanar government (1996-2001). Nonetheless, it appointed a committee to study the feasibility of the port. Nothing came of it. When the UDF returned to power in 2001, the Kumar Group had lost interest.

Then in 2006, when V S Achuthanandan was Chief Minister, the project was awarded to a consortium of three companies: Mumbai-based Zoom Developers and two Chinese firms - Kaidi Electric Power and China Harbour Engineering Company. The Chinese presence prompted the Congress-led Centre to deny clearance.

In the second bidding held in 2008, five consortia bid, and the consortium led by Andhra-based Lanco Kondappally Power won. Lanco secured the Centre's security clearance and even received the 'letter of intent' from the Centre.

But Zoom Developers, which had won the first bid but was denied security clearance and then participated in the second bid with non-Chinese partners and lost, went to court saying that Lanco had Chinese connections.

On June 24, 2009, Lanco formally told the Kerala government that it was not interested in taking up the project. The Vizhinjam dream was as good as dead.

In November 2009, the Achuthanandan government signed an agreement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank, to come up with a study on how to pursue the project further. The IFC recommended the 'landlord model'. This is a public-private partnership (PPP) model in which the government develops the basic infrastructure (land procurement, external infrastructure, breakwater, and road and rail connectivity), and the private concessionaire will take care of the terminal development and operation.

Chandy took off from where Achuthanandan left. In the 2012 tender that was floated after the landlord model was adopted, there was just one bidder: Welspun Infratech Limited (India). Welspun's condition to participate was a grant of ₹479.54 crore spread over 16 years from the State Government. Negotiations fell apart. Grounded, yet again.

However, the Chandy government went ahead with getting the requisite clearances. On January 4, 2014, the project was granted environmental and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

After this, the UDF government invited requests for qualification for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract. No one turned up.

Three leading port operators - Adani Ports, Essar Ports and Srei Infrastructure - had procured the request for proposal documents, raising hopes of a bid war. As it turned out, the field was deserted on the day of the battle. The project's notoriety for being jinxed was intensified.

Finally, after an extended deadline, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ), the country’s largest private multi-port operator, emerged the sole bidder on April 24, 2015.

Four months later, on August 17, 2015, the government signed the concession agreement with Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Limited. Originally, the total project cost was ₹7,525 crore. Now, factoring in the appreciation of money in the last decade, it is ₹8,686 crore. Of this ₹5,370.86 crore (61.83%) will be borne by the state government and ₹2,497 crore (28.74%) by Adani Ports. ₹818 crore will be the Centre's share in the form of viability gap funding, which will be given as a loan to the state.

Even after the pact was inked, it was not smooth sailing for the project.

When the construction work began on December 5, 2015, Gautam Adani set a "1000th day" challenge. He declared that the first ship would berth at the port on September 1, 2018, in less than 1,000 days. It was not to be. He then pushed the deadline to December 3, 2019, the 1,459th day of work. But even this could not be honoured.

First there was Ockhi (2017), then there was the deluge (2018), then came the 2019 floods, and finally the pandemic that brought the world to a halt. Then, in late 2022, fisherfolk under the leadership of the Latin Archdiocese of Thiruvananthapuram sustained a 140-day strike against the Vizhinjam port, raising seven major demands, including a freeze on construction.

Eventually, the first ship, the Chinese vessel 'Zhen Hua 15' carrying cranes, arrived on October 14, 2023, 1411 days after Adani's second deadline. The 400-metre-long MSC Türkiye, one of the biggest cargo ships in the world, docked at Vizhinjam on April 10 this year.

On April 27, 2024, the Vizhinjam Port was given sanction by the Union Shipping Ministry to operate as the country's first transshipment port. (A transshipment port is a crucial hub where cargo is transferred from one big vessel to several smaller ones before they reach the final port of discharge.)

On July 11 this year, the port received its first mother ship, San Fernando, owned by SFL Corporation and chartered by Maersk, Denmark.