Thiruvananthapuram: The Vizhinjam project is way behind schedule as Saturday marked the deadline of 1,000 days which was promised by the Adani Group to complete the first phase. Even 50 percent of the work is not over.
However, as per the agreement the company has time till December 15, 2019 to finish it.
The agreement was signed by the UDF government in 2015 for the construction of a international multi-purpose deepwater seaport project at a cost of Rs 7,525 crore.
Out of this, the state would spend Rs 2280 crore and the central government Rs 817.8 crore.The Adani Group, which had entered into a concession agreement with the state on the Vizhinjam project on August 17, 2015, had promised to complete the project within 1,000 days of the commencement of the work.
The construction was inaugurated on December 5 the same year. The first phase involved building a berth length of 800 metres and a container yard of 131 acres.
The company will have to pay compensation at the rate of Rs 12 lakh for each day of delay. Though, it has approached the government to waive off the compensation, the government has not yielded.
If it has to complete the work as per schedule, it has to compensate for the mandays lost following local protest and the Ockhi cyclone.
The company would have to address the problems faced in the procurement of 72 to 80 lakh tonnes rocks for the breakwater. Though the plan was to procure the rocks from the quarries of Killimaoor area, it did not happen due to local resistance.
Only 600 metres of the 3.1-km-long breakwater has been completed. Of this, around 50 metres was lost during the monsoon furry.
Only around 7,000 of the 17,600 accropodes needed for the outer phase of breakwater have been cast so far. The dredgers and the temporary steel and stone approaches from the operating platform to the jack-up platform were damaged in the rain havoc. The work of the 18 buildings, including those for administrative, customs and electrical sections, was in the initial phase. Of the 600 pilling needed for the construction of the wharf only 377 have been completed. The reclamation has to be done in 15 more hectares of the total 50 hectares needed for the port. According to the agreement, Adani would operate the port for 40 years, extendable by 20 more years, while the state government would get a portion of the revenue from the 15th year.
