CHENNAI: Construction of the proposed Enayam International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) will impact the lives of at least 20,000 families, according to fishermen and activists. “The project will cause massive social and environmental damage,” said Jesu Rathinam, convener, Coastal Action Network, addressing the press on Thursday.
Construction of the port will cause outcomes such as unhealthy soil erosion, salt water intrusion, loss of coastal habitat and ecosystem and loss of livelihood for fishermen, she said speaking on the last day of ‘National Protest Rally of Fish workers,’ an 18-day-long coastal yatra.
Enayam Port is a proposed container transshipment project to be built in Kanyakumari district with a budget of `27,000 crore. Once constructed, it will be among the major ports in India as it will have a capacity of 10 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units - it is the standard size of a container and a common measure of capacity in the container business) and can later be expanded to 18 million TEUs.
Indian containers are mostly transhipped to foreign ports in Colombo, Malaysia and Singapore and incur a large expenditure to the country, creating the need for the Centre to construct native ones under the Sagarmala project.
However, Enayam Port has come under criticism for its close proximity to Vizhinjam port in Kerala. “Located within 20 km from another port, it doubles the potential financial, social and environmental disaster caused by drastic soil erosion,” said Jasiah Joseph, coordinator of People’s movement against Enayam ICTT.