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Mahesh

19/10/23 07:06 AM IST

Vizhinjam international seaport project

In News
  • The Rs 7,600 crore transshipment deepwater multipurpose seaport project is being built by Adani Ports and SEZ Private Limited.
  • It's India's first deepwater transshipment port.
Features
  • The Rs 7,600 crore transshipment deepwater multipurpose seaport project is being built by Adani Ports and SEZ Private Limited on a design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) model.
  • The project has been in the pipeline for decades — different governments tried to develop but it was the Kerala Congress government in 2015 that finally inked a deal with the Adani Group.
  • According to the agreement, out of the total investment, Adani Group is supposed to invest Rs 2,454 crore and another Rs 1,635 crore will be mobilised from the state and central governments as viability gap funding.
  • The Kerala government has also gave 500 acres of land.
  • The DBFOT deal is for 40 years, with provisions extending for 20 years.
Significance
  • India has 13 major ports. However, the country lacks a landside mega-port and terminal infrastructure to deal with ultra-large container ships.
  • Hence, nearly 75 per cent of India’s transshipment cargo is handled at ports outside India, mainly Colombo, Singapore, and Klang.
  • In fiscal 2021-22, the total transshipment cargo of India was about 4.6 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), out of which about 4.2 million TEUs were handled outside India.
  • Developing a port into a Transshipment Hub will accrue significant benefits such as forex savings, foreign direct investment, increased economic activity at other Indian Ports, development of related logistics infrastructure, employment generation, improved operation/logistics efficiencies and increase in revenue share.
  • Several other allied businesses viz. ship chandlery-ship supplies, ship repair, crew change facility, logistics value-added services, warehousing and bunkering also come up at the transshipment port.
Benefits
  • A deepwater container transshipment port can attract a large share of the container transshipment traffic which is now being diverted to Colombo, Singapore and Dubai.
  • It can also ensure India’s economic development and open up immense job opportunities.
  • Located near Thiruvananthapuram, Vizhinjam would be India’s first international deepwater transshipment port with a natural depth of more than 18 meters, scalable up to 20 meters, which is crucial to get large vessels and mother ships.
  • It is designed to cater to container transshipment, multi-purpose, and break-bulk cargo.
  • The port is located ten nautical miles from the international shipping route. Other features include minimal littoral drift along the coast and virtually no requirement for any maintenance dredging.
  • The port is expected to compete with Colombo, Singapore, and Dubai for winning trans-shipment traffic.
  • The cost of movement of containers to and from foreign destinations is likely to come down.
  • Its capacity in the first phase is one million TEU, which can be increased to 6.2 million TEU.
  • The project is expected to generate 5,000 direct job opportunities, apart from giving a boost to an industrial corridor and cruise tourism.
  • Vizhinjam port offers large-scale automation for quick turnaround of vessels with state-of-the-art infrastructure to handle Megamax container ships.
Source- Indian Express

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