Mission 1000 days sets sail

Thiruvananthapuram: Signing of an agreement between the state government and the Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Limited on Monday has cleared the decks for beginning the construction of the international transhipment terminal on November 1, the Kerala Piravi day.

The multi-purpose Vizhinjam port will be built in two phases and the first phase envisages an investment of Rs. 7,525 crore.

The Phase I would comprise a total berth length of 2,625 feet, 53 hectares of storage space and an annual capacity of one million 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs).

This phase is to be completed in four years. The port's handling capacity is envisaged to be 4.1 million TEU/annum at the completion of the project and would cater to 18,000-TEU capacity vessels.

The company has paid a security amount of Rs.120 crore to the government before signing the concession agreement.

Incidentally, Adani Ports was the lone bidder for developing the deepwater multipurpose seaport through public-private partnership (PPP) at a cost of Rs 4,089 crore.

The cabinet cleared the maximum eligible grant of 40 percent above the project amount sought by the Adanis, which would come to around Rs 1,635 crore.

Of this, Rs 818 crore will come as viability gap funding (VGF) from the Centre. It would operate the port for 40 years, which is extendable by another 20 years. The state government would get a portion of the revenue from the port after 15 years of operations.

The port operator would give one percent revenue to the government and it would go up each year till it touches 40 per cent.

One of the main aspects of the project is a programme for long-term observation on the impact of the project on the coastline.

The observation will be held with the assistance of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service (INCOIS) on its 40-km coastline - 20 km north of the port and 20 km south of it - on a monthly basis.

The observation will continue throughout the construction and also during the concession period.