Vizhinjam: A new berth on an old route

When Narendra Modi inaugurated Vizhinjam International Seaport on 2 May 2025, the container terminal on Kerala’s coast already had a commercial operating date: 3 December 2024. Trial operations had preceded it in July. The ceremony gave national prominence to a facility that had begun moving cargo months earlier. [1] [4] [5]

Its attraction was geographical. Deep water near the international east–west shipping route allowed large container vessels to call close to a major sea lane. Transshipment means transferring containers between ships on their journey; providing that service in India could capture business previously handled at overseas hubs. The government’s projected savings, however, were expectations about future trade, rather than a measured return from the inauguration. [1]

A Kerala project across governments

The State Planning Board traced the proposal to the 1990s. Environmental and coastal-regulation clearance was reported in January 2014, before Modi took office. Kerala signed the concession with Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Limited on 17 August 2015, and construction began that December. The state undertook to provide land and external infrastructure, including water, power and rail access. [2] [3]

These responsibilities place several governments and institutions in the history. Kerala sponsored the project and carried it through successive administrations; Adani developed and operates the concession. The Union government supplied approvals and financial support. A February 2026 parliamentary reply recorded ₹817.80 crore in central viability-gap funding, with the expenditure fully incurred. [2] [4]

The timetable took longer than originally envisaged. The 2016 review described a four-year construction period under the concession. Commercial operation arrived in December 2024, well beyond that original schedule. [2] [4]

Cargo and the terms behind the terminal

Phase I opened with an annual handling capacity of one million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, the standard container-volume measure. On 24 January 2026, the shipping ministry reported that the port had handled more than 1.43 million TEUs. That dated traffic total established use of the terminal; it was not a figure for annual capacity or an independent calculation of savings to exporters. [4] [5]

The public bargain had attracted scrutiny before the first containers arrived. In its 2017 audit, the CAG criticised concession conditions that it considered unfavourable to Kerala, including a 40-year term against the 30-year period used in earlier proposals. The state argued that a new port involved greater investment and risk. The audit rejected that explanation; its estimates of future revenue were projections, not cash losses already incurred. [6]

Fishing communities faced a different set of questions. The original clearance required shoreline monitoring and measures to limit disturbance to fishing. Research by Shilpa Krishnan and Sambit Mallick later argued that fish workers’ livelihoods and participation had been neglected. Container throughput does not answer those findings or establish compliance with coastal safeguards. [3] [7]

Expansion work began in January 2026. The subsequent parliamentary reply set December 2028 as the completion target for the combined later phases, raising installed capacity to three million TEUs a year. The first phase was working; the next construction deadline lay ahead. [4] [5]