Vizhinjam International Port is getting ready for commissioning next month, with the state govt to decide on the date soon.
The authorities are more or less ready for the formal commissioning, but operational activities are being fine-tuned and tweaked to speed up docking ships and to handle containers faster.
Sources said the port recently handled three ships almost back to back and that simultaneous docking of two ships in the two berths has also begun.
When the staff, the control room and the procedures are prepared, the port will be able to move containers from ship to port and then to feeder vessels.
The port now gets one ship every alternate day and handles around 2,000 containers on average every day. “We are already working to our maximum capacity as per the demand,” an official said.
In Oct, the port received around 23 ships. The number will exceed in Nov.
Most of the work for the formal commissioning of the port is completed and the yard work is nearing completion, he added.
Now, two ships—MV MSC Shristi and MV MSC Patnaree III—are at the berths.
The port handled more than 50 ships and close to 1 lakh containers in the last four and a half months after trials began with the arrival of the mothership MV San Fernando.