Adani fails to keep Sep 1 date with Vizhinjam port
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 1 : Private multi-port operator Gautam Adani failed to keep his September 1 promise of berthing the first ship from the Vizhinjam Port, near here, on Saturday. A tremendous ammount of work still remains.
Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Ltd (AVPPL) had on December 5, 2015 targeted September 1, 2018 to finish the first phase of the Kerala port.
Adani had said it would be operational in 1,000 days, which was Saturday.
The then Oommen Chandy government had inked the 2015 agreement for the international multi-purpose deepwater seaport project at a cost of Rs 7,525 crores. Adani Ports, which was the lone bidder had sought a Rs 1,635 crore grant for this.
Vizhinjam Mother Port Action Committee member Elias John said: "What has happened is the interest shown by the Chandy government is absent with the present government.
"If the things continue to proceed like this, they will be unable to even meet the 1,425 days deadline."
The delay is being attributed to a serious shortage of limestone required for building the breakwaters. Then there was Cyclone Ockhi which landed a huge beating in 2017 and took away 150 metres of the constructed breakwater.
According to the agreement, Adani would operate the port for 40 years, extendable by 20 more years, while the state government would get a portion of the revenue from the port after 15 years.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
