Many feared the Vizhinjam port struggle was the Nandigram moment for the Left in Kerala. The fishermen’s struggle led by a section of the Catholic church attracted much public sympathy, particularly because it was against mighty corporate Adani. After all, fisherfolk were a social outlier from the mainstream of developmental progress in the state. Many pent-up grievances also might have contributed to the outburst.
From the start, the tactics of agitators were to provoke police action, if not police firing, which could then be used to scale the struggle to the rest of Kerala. The government refused to be provoked even after a violent mob attack on the police station. The violence seems to have boomeranged, and a truce was reached. The government, from the beginning, was willing to consider all demands other than halting the construction of the port. That is where the final line was drawn.
How is Vizhinjam port important for Kerala development? In fact, the first survey for the port was undertaken before Independence. There was a consensus among all political parties for the establishment of India’s first transhipment port at Vizhinjam, given its geographical proximity to the international sea route and deep-water shoreline. After the failure of the earlier two tender exercises, the Congress government in 2015 signed the contract with Adani to construct and operate the port for a specified period.
The Left opposed the contract because the terms were one-sided, in favour of the Adani company. Despite the open criticism against the terms, the Congress government signed the agreement. The church-led organisations organised a stir to protest the delays in implementation. In the situation, at the time of the election, the Left took a public stand that it would not disrupt the agreement already signed and would implement the project in a time-bound manner if it came to power.
There were three factors that weighed in favour of the changed stand of the Left. First was that the cancellation of a duly signed agreement would result in endless litigation and serious delay in the project, which would prove mortal given the possibility of a new port in the adjacent Tamil Nadu district of Kanyakumari. Second, a major impediment to industrialisation in Kerala has been the virtual absence of any corporate investment in the state. In this context, the cancellation of a duly signed contract would affect the credibility of the efforts being made to improve the investment climate in the state.
Perhaps the most important factor was that giving up the port would have jeopardised the Capital Region Development Program, which was expected to attract an overall investment of around ₹60,000 crore.
Central to the programme was the construction of a 70-km long ring road from the port, passing through the foothills and ending in the coastal highway under the SagarMala Programme. A string of knowledge cities, industrial parks, townships and logistics hubs would be linked to the new arterial road. The project would be a boon to the crisis-ridden rubber lands in the foothills.
The progress of construction fell behind schedule because of natural calamities, Covid and scarcity of construction materials. Nevertheless, the first phase was to be completed in the current new year. It was at this juncture that on August 18, the struggle was launched to halt the construction, a demand which could never be accepted after the state had invested nearly ₹6,000 crore. This aroused suspicion that there was more than what meets the eye behind the agitation.
The allegation of neglecting the fisherfolk who had been displaced and faced loss of livelihood will not stand a fact check. To begin with, the project had not displaced any fisherfolk families. Now it is very clear that the unfortunate families who were living in miserable conditions in the cement godown came to occupy the shed in the post-Covid period. There were many families in the vicinity who had lost their houses and land due to sea erosion. In the project area, 212 flats were built to rehabilitate such families in 2020. Double the number of additional flats would have been built had the church not disputed two puramboke properties identified for construction. Instead of ₹8 crore allotment for compensation, more than ₹95 crore was distributed for 2,660 fishermen for livelihood loss.
The Kerala government also launched a ₹5,000-crore special package for the coastal area in the budget of 2019–20. It included rehabilitation of all fisher families living within 50 meters of the seashore. Already 2,997 families have been rehabilitated. Nearly 7,000 families have been identified for new houses at ₹4 lakh per house. All the schools and hospitals in the coastal area have been included in the upgradation scheme. All the welfare payments to the fisherfolk have been doubled. Of course, much more needs to be done, but it should not detract us from what has been done.
A focal point of the agitation has been the adverse impact of port construction on the seashore north of the port. Though the official environmental impact assessment denies any such calamitous impact, the general experience so far in Kerala would confirm the fears of the fisherfolk. Therefore, effective coastal protection measures must be ensured. This has been held back because of differences in opinion regarding the appropriate protection method. Instead of the traditional sea wall alternatives of a string of small groins or offshore breakwaters is being experimented with an outlay of nearly ₹500 crore.
Not only the direct cost of investment but also the indirect cost of increased coastal erosion and adverse impact on fishing must be factored into the project’s cost. The government has earnestly responded to such concerns.
On the other hand, both direct and indirect benefits also have to be considered. Such a cost-benefit analysis would work out in favour of the project, a fact the church itself had accepted before the project began. Why it has changed its stance when the project is more than halfway through is a hazardous guess.
Dr T M Thomas Isaac
Former finance minister of Kerala