Adani’s Vizhinjam Port Approved As India’s First Transshipment Hub

May 3, 2024

The Centre has given sanction to Adani’s Vizhinjam Port in Kerala to operate as a transshipment port.
This will be India’s first full-fledged deepwater transshipment port.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) started the international transshipment project in Vizhinjam, Kerala in December 2015.
A transshipment port is a crucial hub where cargo is transferred from one big vessel to several smaller ones before they reach the final port of discharge. It will now help India in its ambition to become a manufacturing hub.
The initial goal was to complete the ₹7,700 crore deepwater seaport project in four years by 2019. It is now expected to start operations in this financial year. The project seeks a share in the Indian cargo totalling more than a million containers which are transshipped annually through foreign ports, such as those in Colombo in Sri Lanka.
Container volumes are measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). One TEU is roughly equal to a standard size container.
Its capacity in the first phase is to be one million TEUs. Another 6.2 million TEUs will be added in subsequent phases. It is estimated that nearly 75% of India’s transshipment cargo is handled at ports outside the country. Ports in Colombo, Singapore and Klang handle about 85% of this cargo.