Ministry gives nod for VizhinjamTerminal project

Thiruvananthapuram: The Union Ministry of Shipping has given its go-ahead to the Rs 5,348-crore Vizhinjam Deepwater Container Transshipment Terminal proposed to be set up at Vizhinjam, 16 km from here.

A consortium of companies led by the Hyderabad-based Lanco Kondappally is executing the project.

Other members of the consortium include Lanco Infrastructure and Pembinan Redzai, a Malaysian company.

The consortium will have a 76 per cent stake in the project, with the State Government holding the remaining 24 per cent.

The project will be executed under the build-operate-transfer model, to be returned to the State Government after a period of 30 years.

Speaking to newspersons here, the Kerala Ports Minister, Mr M. Vijayakumar, said that the State Government and the consortium would immediately sit together to thrash out the formalities connected with setting up a special purpose vehicle for project implementation.

The project, which is expected to employ at least 3,000 persons directly and another 1.5 lakh indirectly, had earlier received mandatory clearances from the Ministries of External Affairs, Defence and Home.

The Vizhinjam project had exciting prospects, the Minister said. It would be the biggest container transshipment port in the country and its location was very close to the international shipping route.

The seas around here have a natural depth sufficient for the largest container ships of the world to drop anchor.