Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday to express the concerns of the state over the proposed Colachal port. Mr Vijayan along with Port Minister Kadanappally Ramachandran left for Delhi on Thursday evening. Mr Vijayan will express the state’s concern over the in- principal nod given to the Colachel port project in Tamil Nadu, which is hardly 30 km from Vizhinjam port through sea.
The proposal was to build a major port at Enayam near Colachel with an investment of about Rs 25,000 crore. The state government has already written to the Prime Minister on the state's anxieties over the development of Colachel port. The fact is that both ports have the same advantage of location as they are situated a few kilometres from the international shipping lane.
Huge container vessels now do not come to Indian ports but drop the containers for Indian ports at Colombo making it the major transhipment hub of South Asia. Now, small ships take these containers from Colombo to Indian ports. The coming up of two ports in close proximity would be detrimental for both, it is said.
