Ports Minister K. Babu has said that the State government will not allow any move to scuttle the Vizhinjam port project to succeed.

At a function organised by the Federation of Residents’ Association, Thiruvananthapuram here on Monday, Mr. Babu said a few tourism stakeholders had met him recently with what they thought would happen to their business if the port were to come up. He asked them what they had been doing till now, when a considerable amount of work had gone into bringing this important project to fruition.

He said their response was that they had not believed so far it was going to happen. “A concerted effort was now going on to resist the project. I do not want to name who all are behind the negative propaganda,” he said. He added that the interests involved might be that of a very few individuals, or might even be international in nature. Many people might have motives to scuttle the project.

He said another question now being raised was why the government had not accepted the offer of a consortium led by Welspun Infratech for taking up the port operator’s role at Vizhinjam. Mr. Babu said this consortium was the only bidder who was given security clearance by the Union government. The problem was that the consortium was demanding a grant of Rs. 479.5 crore over 15 years to operate the port.

He said the decision not to accept the bid was taken after due deliberations, studies, consultations, negotiations and considered advice. Two factors should be taken note of. First, the role of the port operator would come only after the basic infrastructure had fallen into place. This was the responsibility of the State government. Work on this could begin only after the project had received environmental clearance. Next month would witness the public hearing that was part of the process of winning environmental clearance.

He said immediately upon winning the environmental clearance the government would float EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) tenders to start work on the basic port infrastructure. With respect to selecting the port operator, there was time. The State should get the best deal, Mr. Babu said.

Describing the logic of dropping the Welspun offer (even after the grant demand was scaled down to Rs. 399.5 crore during negotiations), Mr. Babu said the expected winning of environmental clearance, lining up of the EPC contracts and exemption for Cabotage regulations for Vizhinjam (for which the State was exerting pressure at the Centre), would draw more business interest than at present in taking up the port operator’s role there. “We are sure we will get a better deal,” he said.