Vizhinjam port...the dream of a nation

In the last few posts, I concentrated on music and sports. Now, lets get on to something serious. Its now a pretty busy time with the elections coming up and all the polictial parties are busy convincing the voters of the good things they are gonna do once they get to rule. And almost all the parties have released their manifestos. Its actually a pretty funny excercise to read those manifestos. These are epitomes of sugar coated lying. And the funny thing is both the political parties as well as the voters know whatever is mentioned in those are nothing more than pure lies. Jokes aside, manifestos give a clear picture on the line of thinking of the party. And it came as a surprise when CPIM released their manifesto, the Vizhinjam port was mentioned in just 2 sentences. And this is a project which was hailed as the one which will change the face of the nation.

Vizhinjam is one project which has faced innumerable backlashes from the time it was conceived almost half a century back. Most of the time other states would do something to derail the proposals that kerala put before the centre. This is because they know that once the port at Vizhinjam becomes a reality, then ship traffic to their own ports would decrease. The advantage with Vizhinjam, as u all know, that it has a natural depth of 24m when nearby ports like mangalore has only 10m or something. So it doean't need massive digging operations to achieve depth. Also it is situated 20 km off the international shipping route. Such a transshipment terminal with all these natural advantages needs to be promoted.

But, alas, that is not the case here. The other states trying to lay roadblocks for the projects can be understood, though in the larger picture of the country, its a crime. Here, its our own politicians and beaurocrats who are playing dirty games to make sure that Vizhinjam transshipment terminal doesn't become a reality. Its known that there is a section of highly placed secretariat officials, who are using all their connections at the centre to derail the project. And the stone laying of the project was postponed 2 times. Atlast, elections were declared and as per existing rules it became impossible to lay the stone for this new project. And this was exactly what this officials wanted.

Also, the people associated with Vallarpadom container terminal at Kochi is also playing a major part in delaying the project. They know that once Vizhinjam port is in working condition, then the purpose of vallarpadom itself will be questioned. And the Union ports minister T.R.Balu is also against this project. Whenever a question on Vizhinjam is put to him, he puts the matter of Vallarpadom forward. He once even went as far as asking ''how many ports does a state want'', clearly implying that since vallarpadom is already sanctioned, don't even dare to dream about Vizhinjam. But the state government has to be commented for taking the initiative and calling a tender from private agencies to build the hub. The tender was won by a consortium of chinese and Indian companies, experienced in this field.

Now, everything is in the hands of the next government. Whoever, wants to come to power must convince the people of kerala, that within the next 5 years Vizhinjam port will become a reality. And lets hope that doesn't just remain in words and manifestos, but be converted to action....waiting 4 the gateway to open...for kerala as well as India....So all Indians join in support of this noble cause...dont' bring petty regionalism into this matter. Because, the fruits of this are for the whole country to enjoy...
Those who want to have an active participation in the discussions on this project, join this groups..
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vizhinjamproject/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thiruvananthapuramdevelopmentfront/
with love , your crusader Praveen