Basic facilities requisite for Vizhinjam to thrive

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For Vizhinjam to help Kerala grow, the state must quickly set up export and import facilities after the port gets commissioned on May 2. Land needs to be acquired, and all supporting infrastructure should be built. Entrepreneurs should be encouraged to invest.

Right now, the port only handles trans-shipment business moving containers from mothership to smaller ships. This does not benefit Kerala much. Vizhinjam should become the main gateway for movement of goods in India, similar to how Singapore developed with its port. This is the big opportunity that this port offers to Kerala.

Facilities like warehouses, container freight stations, cold storage, container repair yards, ship repair centers, fuel stations for ships, good road and rail connections, and logistics centers must be built. Without these, the port would only earn a maximum of Rs 1 crore for each mother ship that arrives.

Kerala has many things it can export, such as fish, vegetables, fruits, honey, flowers, farm products, spices, and items made by Kudumbashree. Raw materials from China can be brought in, assembled in Kerala, and then exported. This will create jobs and help small industries. Even supplying water and food to ships can be a profitable business.

So far, most goods shipped from Vizhinjam are medicines. Other exports include mangoes from Maharashtra, Kashmir apples, engineering goods from companies based in Maharashtra and Gujarat, and vegetables from Tamil Nadu.

Shipping from Vizhinjam is much faster. Usually, sending goods to the US from Kochi takes 60-65 days and to Europe 40 days. However, from Vizhinjam, it takes only 35 days to the US and 22 days to Europe.

Vizhinjam is only 10 nautical miles from the main international shipping route. Mumbai is 700 nautical miles away, and Mundra is 1,150 nautical miles away. Ships can reach Vizhinjam more than 50 hours sooner.

So far, 263 ships and 5.36 lakh containers have arrived at Vizhinjam.