THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan said that even as there were serious lapses in the agreement on the Vizhinjam port project, the government now had no option other than going ahead with it. “Many concerns had come up when the previous UDF government signed the agreement with the Adani group on the Vizhinjam project. Those shortcomings still remained as shortcomings. But the government now has no other option other than taking forward the project as per the conditions in the agreement. The state’s larger interest is to complete the project on a time-bound basis,” the Chief Minister said during question hour in the Assembly on Monday.
Officials associated with the project told DC that the Chief Minister might have referred to the public-private-partnership model adopted by the previous UDF government for the agreement. The LDF had suggested the landlord model claiming that it would give more control to the government on the project. But the priority of this government now was to commission the project at the earliest and hence it was not doing any rethink, said a senior official.
Meanwhile, Ports Minister Kadanapally Ramachandran told the Assembly that the final observations of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) regarding the Vizhinjam international seaport project were yet to come. The reports that the CAG had found that the project was not beneficial to the state were from the draft report of the CAG. The final report would be prepared after considering the remarks of the departments concerned. The state government would take necessary steps once the CAG’s final report was received, he said.
Though the UDF raised objections with the discussions over the remarks in the CAGs draft report that the agreement was not favourable to the state, Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan rejected it. The CAG’s draft report said that the Vizhinjam International Seaport project was against the best interests of the state and only the Adani Group was set to benefit from the agreement. The Kerala government which had incurred 67 percent of the total project expenditure of Rs 7,525 crore would draw a profit of a mere Rs 13,948 crore. Meanwhile, the Adani Group which shares 33 percent of the project expenditure would reap a profit of Rs 1, 44, 653 crore, the report had pointed out.
