KOCHI: The central government on Wednesday said resolving various issues at the DP World-run Vallarpadam Container Terminal is one of the top priorities of the Ministry of Shipping and a strategy to actualize the vision to make it the transshipment hub of India and a pioneer hub in South Asia will be chalked out soon.
“We are developing the transshipment facility on the Indian port to ensure that the Indian cargo trans-ship through Indian port. Resolving various issues of Vallarpadam Terminal is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Shipping," said Mansukh Mandaviya, union minister for shipping, after reviewing the various development activities of the Vallarpadam Terminal.
Transshipment hub is the terminal at the port which handles containers, stores them temporarily and transfers them to other ships heading to onward destinations.
"The Kochi International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), locally known as the Vallarpadam Terminal, is located strategically on the Indian coastline. It successfully fulfills all the criteria which are needed to develop it as a transshipment hub," said a statement issued by the ministry after the review meeting held by union minister Mandaviya.
Some of the advantages the Vallarpadam Terminal have are a) it is best positioned Indian port with regard to proximity to international sea routes, b) It is located at the least average nautical distance from all feeder ports, c) it entails connectivity which has multiple weekly feeder connections to all ports on the West and East Coast of India from Mundra to Kolkota, d) it has proximity to key hinterland markets of India, and e) it has the infrastructure to manage large ships and capacity to scale it up as per requirement.