The L&T Ramboll Report

L&T-Ramboll is an independent engineering consultancy firm, formed by Larsen & Toubro Ltd., Ramboll (Denmark) and IFU (the Danish Industrialization Fund for Developing Countries). The Report of a scientific study on Indian ports by L&T Ramboll states without any doubt that Vizhinjam is the best choice to make a perfect Mother Port. Proximity to the International Shipping Channel, Capital cost, Dredging, Mechanization and Pre-berthing delays were taken as parameters for the study. For almost all every parameters Vizhinjam got the top score of 9 among 10. It was only in terms of Capital Cost that Vizhinjam was not topping the list, the relatively high cost of developing a port from scratch pushed its score down to 5 out of 10.
In the final ranking Vizhinjam stood head and shoulders above the competition with 78 points out of a maximum of 100.Cochin port was a distant second with 59 points. The celebrated Jawaharlal Nehru Port at Mumbai (JNPT) got only the fourth position and the Chennai stood far below at the sixth rank.
Among these parameters, the most important are the proximity to the International Channel, the need of dredging and the Capital cost. Even though Vizhinjam require more Capital expenditure, it can be neglected since Vizhinjam possesses prime geographical advantages such as natural depth, rocky seabed, least tidal variation etc. By present estimates, even with the comparatively higher capital expenditure, Vizhinjam port could make profit in the very first year itself. More over, when considering the great loss to the national exchequer through the transshipment rate given to the foreign ports, this slight variation in the capital comparing with others is of course negligible.