Kerala’s Vizhinjam Port All Set To Create A World Record On Turnaround Time

The much-awaited Vizhinjam International Seaport, India’s first deep-water container transhipment port began trial runs with Mothership- San Fernando, a Maersk line vessel berthing at the port with 1930 containers. Once fully operational, the turnaround time of the port is expected to be less than a day (0.9 day), which is better than the U.S. (1.5 days), UAE (1.1 days) and Singapore (1 day). One of the major attractions of the port is its proximity to international shipping routes and its deep draft. Global shipping majors prefer ports with an 18 metre or more draft. Vizhinjam has a 20 meters draft, while neighbouring ports like Cochin and Thoothukudi have insufficient draft of 14.5 m and 14.2 m respectively. The Vizhinjam Port, once fully operational, will be competing with some of the major ports in this region —  Colombo, Singapore, Port Klang and even Dubai. While the projected handling capacity of the Vizhinjam Seaport in the first phase would be One  million (TEUs) Twenty  foot  equivalent units, Singapore does 36.8 million (TEUs) and Colombo 6.85 million (TEUs) as per 2020 figures. Work on the Vizhinjam Port started in 2015 under a public-private development plan. For this purpose, the Kerala Government entered into a concession agreement with Adani Vizhinjam Port Pvt Ltd. Out of the total investment of Rs 8,867 crore, the Central Government has allocated Rs 5,595 crore and State Government Rs 818 crore. The port hopes to be fully operational by October 2024.