In order to cater to all type of vessels including super post Panamax vessels and mega container carriers, the Kerala Government is at a massive project of developing a deepwater international container transshipment terminal at Vizhinjam port on public-private-partnership basis. The project was not well-received by the stakeholders in the tourism industry; they raised serious objections to the project which, they believed, would affect their interests. The ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Mr. Scot T Adams visited the Vizhinjam on Monday to listen to the representations by the representatives of the tourism trade and to have an on-the-spot assessment of the intensity of the controversy related to the proposed project. The representatives of the tourism industry were of the view that IFC had not understood the complexity of the issue and again, it had not done a proper cost-benefit analysis of the project. Mr. Adams would meet all the complainants and the groups of stakeholders; he would also take a tour covering the coastal stretch of the shipping channel of the project. He would meet Mr.K.Babu, the ports minister.IFC, a member of the World Bank Group sharing the mission of reducing “global poverty”, is the prime advisor for the project. It offers, as it claims, through its wing called IFC Advisory Services, “problem solving and training to companies, industries and governments, all aimed at helping private sector enterprises overcome obstacles to growth”.
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