Vizhinjam International Seaport The Game Changer!

The massive MSC Irina, with a length of 399.9 metres, width of 61.3 metres and capacity of 24,346 TEUs – four times longer than a standard FIFA-designated football field – docked at the Vizhinjam International Seaport early June this year on her maiden visit to a South Asian port. A record of sorts, as no other Indian port could have berthed a container ship this size. “This fledgling, eight-month-old facility was commissioned formally on December 3, 2024, though trial operations started earlier in September and was India’s best kept secret till the Honourable Prime Minister dedicated it to the nation on May 2, 2025,” said Sreekumar K Nair, CEO, Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd (VISL), speaking to TrafficInfratech at length and with passion on Thiruvananthapuram’s pride.

We do not have multimodal hubs, container freight stations, empty container yards, warehouses or cold chains to complement logistics. As the port capacity gets augmented in the next four years, we shall, in parallel, roll out the red carpet to investors to come up and set up logistics operations here. This is a gold mine waiting to be tapped with logistics and port-driven industrial ecosystems waiting to take shape.”

— Sreekumar K Nair

Traditionally, Indian ports on the Western and Eastern seaboards such as JNPT, Kandla, Mundra, Vizag, Chennai, Kochi and Kolkata have centuries old legacies and many of these ports were set up by the Britishers in protected environments such as a bay, a river mouth or the backwaters. That legacy is actually to their disadvantage because the ports lack deep draft to attract larger vessels which are sailing the high seas today,” said Nair. They are also located at a relatively longer distance from the major sea routes of the world.

“China is the largest contributor to global traffic, with almost 40% market share in global trade. For most of the major shipping lines, their regular services originate from one of the Chinese ports. Either they sail across the Pacific Ocean to the West Coast of the US or they sail down the South China Sea to Singapore and further on to the Malacca Straits, cut across the Bay of Bengal, circumvent the Indian peninsula, then across the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, further on to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal and finally to the ports in Europe or the East Coast of the US. This is the typical sea route where you have almost one third of the global traffic.”

The Vizhinjam International Seaport is India’s first deep-water transshipment hub. The strategically located port offers advanced automation, deep-sea access, and strong connectivity. This artificial harbour has a naturally deep draft right at the shore and is located close to the busiest sea route in the world.

“These are Vizhinjam’s USPs. Because of its location right at the South Western tip of India and being just about 10 nautical miles away, Vizhinjam is even closer than Colombo to the busiest sea route. It is nature’s gift to this part of the continental shelf where the natural deep draft right at the shore is above 18 metres and requires no maintenance dredging, unlike other Indian ports. The Vande Bharats of the global maritime trade can call only at Vizhinjam and not at any another Indian port,” said Nair. Of the six vessels which come under the Irina class, MSC Turkiye and MSC Claude Girardet have already berthed here. Vizhinjam can leverage its natural depth to host even ultra-large next-gen container ships requiring 20m+ drafts.

The port’s curvilinear coast mitigates tsunami impact while the port’s positioning results in only mild erosion, minimizing maintenance costs. “The cyclonic storms during the monsoons are more on the East Coast of India because most of these originate in the Bay of Bengal or down South in the Indian Ocean, impacting the Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Odisha coast lines. However, the swells that travel up the Indian ocean almost 1500 kms come and hit this side of peninsular India. which is fully exposed to the fury of the sea. To absorb the impact, a 3km long breakwater, an engineering marvel, has been made possible today with the help of technology,” opined Nair.

“Before Vizhinjam, typically what happened was we drop our cargo to those ports in South Asia, SE Asia or GCC countries where large vessels called. Two thirds of the cargo would get transshipped in Colombo, 10-15% in Singapore, another 10-15% in one of the GCC ports of Dubai, Jebel Ali, Abu Dhabi or Salalah. This meant extra time and extra cost and we could never be competitive in the global market. Against China’s 40% market share in global trade, India is a bit player with just 2%. A significant reason for this is the higher cost of transportation and logistics. That is where Vizhinjam will be a real game changer for India in the global trade.

“Let’s take two products of Kerala which cater to the global market: processed fish and cashew. If a reefer container is loaded in Vallarpadam container terminal in Kochi for the East Coast of the US, it takes more than two months or 67 days for the cargo to reach its destination as it would get transshipped to various ports enroute. The same reefer container could reach the US East coast in 32 days from Vizhinjam.”

Thus, the port is poised to emerge as a transshipment hub that can consolidate and transfer Indian and regional origin cargo to mainline vessels at lower costs than routing them via Colombo. By locating a world-class Indian transshipment port right on top of a core international shipping lane, Vizhinjam can unlock lasting maritime and economic advantages for the country. It aims to improve logistics performance, reduce dependence on international ports for transshipment and increase efficiency in cargo handling.

Within its first few months of commercial operations, the port handled over 186,000 TEUs across 91 vessels in just February and March 2025 — exceeding its capacity utilization rate by 110 percent, indicating strong demand and operational success. “This is the change that the port will bring for Indian cargo. The port has been operating consistently at 120% throughput the last few months.

“The nameplate capacity is one million TEUs per year, which should be around 83,000 TEUs per month, whereas we have been consistently doing 105, 110, 120 in the last four to five months from a port that got commissioned just seven months back. This shows its potential. It is now being scaled up from one million TEUs to three million by December 2028. However, with the best equipment and adoption of technology, it will be 4.5 to 5 million TEUs when full capacity is achieved.”

Also known as Trivandrum Port, it has been developed through a public-private partnership (PPP) between Adani Ports and the Kerala state government. The project was allotted to APSEZ by the state government in 2015 for a concession period of 40 years. The construction of all the phases of the port is expected to be completed by 2028 and become fully operational from 2034. According to Nair, even the government of India has not attempted a port of this complexity in the PPP model. The breakwater has been funded by the state government of Kerala and executed by the private partner, Adani, selected through a transparent bid process.

The port’s infrastructure design incorporates rail and road connectivity, including a planned railway tunnel from Balaramapuram 10 kms away, which is expected to boost inland cargo movement and cut transit time across the southern part of the country. Each berth at Vizhinjam is designed to handle ships carrying up to 24,000 TEUs, aligning with global standards for container transshipment and increasing India’s cargo-handling efficiency.

Berths are designated spots in a port or harbour where ships are tied up to load and unload cargo or passengers. Each berth is typically equipped with the infrastructure needed to handle specific types of vessels—such as cranes, storage areas, pipelines, and cargo handling systems. Vizhinjam has been labelled as India’s first eco-friendly and semi-automated seaport, combining advanced automation with sustainable infrastructure to cater to the needs of environmentally conscious maritime operators.

The port is equipped with remotely controlled ship-to-shore cranes and automated yard cranes to deliver enhanced speed and safety in cargo handling. It also features the country’s first indigenously developed AI-powered Vessel Traffic Management System (VTMS), developed by a start-up incubated in IIT Madras. The project is set to generate around 5,500 direct employment opportunities. Notably, Vizhinjam is also the first port in India to have an all-women team operating its automated crane systems, with the team trained at the Community Skill Park in Kerala.

Women from the local fishermen community sitting in air-conditioned rooms are trained by the Adani Group to execute and monitor container movement from ship to shore and vice-versa. Automation has made it a safer port with faster throughput. The world’s most modern port is undoubtedly Shanghai and Vizhinjam has adopted more or less the same degree of automation as Shanghai, the reason being it is a newer port.

There are still limitations by way of last-mile connectivity which need to be addressed. This is a logistics hub with currently the only movement being ship-to-ship. The connectivity by rail and road are critical. Once all aspects are in place, Vizhinjam will be a key contributor to the Indian states in their race to become a one trillion-dollar economy.