PM Narendra Modi's visit to Kerala on Friday, May 2 included a short aerial journey from Thiruvananthapuram city to the Vizhinjam International Seaport site.
Wearing a hard hat, the Prime Minister took a tour of the transhipment hub's operational facilities before addressing the dignitaries and audience. The port had already received its commercial commissioning certificate in December last year following successful trial runs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi applauded industrialist Gautam Adani during his speech following the inauguration of the Adani Group-led Vizhinjam International Seaport in Kerala.
"I just visited the port. But when the people of Gujarat learn that Gautam Adani has built such a great port in Kerala... In Gujarat, he has been working on ports for 30 years. But never has he built a port like this. So he should be ready to face the anger of the people of Gujarat," Prime Minister Modi joked, prompting laughter from the audience.
The Vizhinjam port, located in Thiruvananthapuram district, was completed at an estimated cost of Rs 8,867 crore and is projected to reduce India's dependence on foreign ports for transhipment.
The port's development, undertaken by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ), was executed under a public-private partnership model between the Government of Kerala and the Adani Group. APSEZ, part of the larger Adani conglomerate, is India's largest private port operator.
The commissioning ceremony was attended by Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Mr Adani, and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
Zhen Hua 15, a ship twice the length of a football field, made history last week when it docked at the Vizhinjam International Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport in Kerala after sailing down the East China Sea with a cargo of cranes for the port.
For the Zhen Hua 15, it was just a 42-day journey, but for India’s newest mega port, the arrival of the Chinese ship marked the end of a three-decade-long wait.
The port, which is fully owned by the Kerala government, is built by Adani Vizhinjam Ports Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (APSEZ), India’s largest private sector port operator. It is expected to be fully operational by December 2024, and will be able to handle 18,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containerized cargo, which will eventually be expanded to 3 million TEUs.
The port is a dream project for the government and the private sector. It is the first to come up on Kerala’s shores in 96 years, and is expected to boost commerce as well as tourism. For the central government, it is a big move to grab a large share of the lucrative transshipment market.
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