Vizhinjam port: Political wrangling over credit for seaport breaks out in Kerala before harbour operations begin

A Chinese ship with cranes for the Vizhinjam international port berthing at Vizhinjam in Thiruvananthapuram on October 12, 2023.
| Photo Credit: S. MAHINSHA

Political wrangling over claiming credit for the realisation of the Vizhinjam international port broke out barely 48 hours before the harbour is set to commence operations on October 15.

Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran accused Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of falsely positing himself as the architect of the mega scheme. He said the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government delayed the project by four years, causing a mammoth cost overrun.

While in the Opposition, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] had tried to scuttle the project by raising fictitious corruption charges against the then Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Ports Minister K. Babu. Nevertheless, Chandy’s will to implement the project prevailed, said Mr. Sudhakaran.

The CPI(M) had assailed Chandy publicly, and the United Democratic Front (UDF) instituted a judicial commission to investigate the allegations. The Justice C.N. Ramachandran Nair Commission gave the Oommen Chandy government a clean chit.

Mr. Sudhakaran demanded that Mr. Vijayan apologise for the CPI(M) attempts to derail the project and name the port after the late Chief Minister. (The government was yet to respond to the Congress’ demand.)

He said the previous UDF government had finalised land acquisition and designed a rehabilitation package acceptable to all stakeholders before it left office.

Mr. Sudhakaran said the subsequent Pinarayi Vijayan government failed to meet the 2019 deadline.

He said the Vizhinjam port was far from complete. The LDF government had yet to construct the 12-km road linking the port to arterial highways. It has not even floated a tender for the contract.

Mr. Sudhakaran said the proposed modern fishing harbour at Vizhinjam remained mainly on paper. The port inauguration was mere political tokenism.

Boycott planned

The Thiruvananthapuram Latin Catholic Archdiocese vicar general, Fr. Eugene Pereira, also weighed in.

Fr. Periera said coast-dwellers displaced by the project would boycott the function, marking the commencement of the port’s operations on October 15.

He said the inauguration was mere government propaganda with little substance. “Two cranes and a ship would not make an international port,” said Fr. Pereira.

The vicar general said the government had gone back on its promise to rehabilitate fishers displaced by the port.

The Vizhinjam Action Council (VAC) headed by the Latin Catholic Church had halted port construction for a protracted period in 2022, stating that the government had undertaken the scheme without conducting an independent environmental impact assessment study.

Hundreds of fisher families blocked the port by stating that the breakwater’s construction caused the sea to encroach, displacing seafaring coast-dwellers.

The agitation took a violent turn in December 2022, with protesters trespassing on the Vizhinjam police station, injuring 35 law enforcers and destroying public property.

The police named several priests accused in the case. The Church had demanded that the government drop the charges against the protesters.

The Congress-led UDF Opposition had accused the government of not addressing the concerns raised by the Church-led fishing community.