Kerala's Vizhinjam port: Trial operations begin amid political controversies

As the trial operation of Kerala’s dream project, Vizhinjam International  Seaport —India’s first deepwater transhipment port— officially commences today, the state capital is in a frenzy. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the official function marking the event. This official function has already attracted political controversy as the government did not extend an invitation to Kerala opposition leader V.D. Satheeshan. 

The ruling front and the opposition are also fighting for credit, much like the war of words that occurred last October when CM Vijayan flagged in the first-ever cargo ship to the Vizhinjam Port.

Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor announced in advance that he would skip the function, citing the government's failure to rehabilitate and compensate hundreds of seafaring fisher families displaced by the port. Notably, Tharoor had claimed that the Adani Group came forward to bid for the construction of the port after he spoke to Gautam Adani about it when the two met on a flight.

Vizhinjam had an ancient port that was prominent until the 14th century, destroyed in the conflicts between the Chera and Chola dynasties. The first attempt for a modern port in Vizhinjam occurred in the 1940s when the Travancore kingdom conducted a feasibility survey. Then Diwan (Prime Minister) Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyer even held talks with an international firm, but the plan did not result in a port.

Fifty years later, in the early 1990s, K. Karunakaran’s UDF government made the next move to study the feasibility of a port. The subsequent E.K. Nayanar’s LDF government sanctioned a contract on build, operate, and transfer conditions, but the project did not take off. In 2001, the UDF returned to power and called for an international tender for port construction, but the project faced further roadblocks. During the LDF period starting in 2006, infrastructure development measures were taken at Vizhinjam, with a Chinese company applying for the contract, but the then Union government did not approve it.

Finally,  it was the Oommen Chandy government of the UDF that took decisive measures to build the port and bring the Adani Group into the project. Though the LDF had protested the agreement signed for this project, the Chandy government moved ahead.

 The LDF government of Vijayan came to power after the Adani Group started construction of the port under a PPP model. Interestingly, Kerala’s port minister V.N. Vasavan told a national daily yesterday that even now the LDF does not believe the agreement signed for the project protected the state’s interests, despite the state government covering 66 per cent of the total project cost. The minister also claimed that the LDF continued the port's construction as it was not right to annul the agreement after work started in 2015.

However, there is no dearth of claims and counterclaims as both fronts vie for credit.