Adani Vizhinjam Ports Pvt Ltd (AVPPL) is building a $7,525-crore deep-water, multipurpose, international seaport and container transhipment facility at Vizhinjam, near Thiruvananthapuram, to strengthen India’s standing in the maritime shipping world. Given the growing prominence of Chinese and Pakistani interests in the region, the project has gained substantial geopolitical clout. It also addresses India’s obvious lack of a large seaport with the necessary draught for Mother Ships – enormous ships — to dock in the south. It’s also only 10 nautical miles (NM) from the international maritime route that connects the Far East to the Middle East as well as the Suez Canal. This path is 28 miles from Colombo.
Vizhinjam could offer significant competition to the transhipment ports of Colombo, Singapore and Dubai that annually divert 5 million TEUs (twenty-foot boxes) of cargo for lack of a comparable port infrastructure in India. Being able to handle the traffic in Vizhinjam can prevent huge time and cost overruns for businesses here, as one can move containers to the destination the same day by rail or road. Indian ports annually lose nearly $220 million of potential revenue on transshipment handling of cargo originating/destined for India.
