The VO Chidambaranar Port Authority in Thoothukudi is requesting Expressions of Interest (EoI) to develop the nine-year-old outer harbour project on a design-build-finance-operate-transfer basis. The outer harbour container development will have a capacity of 4 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
In the Union Budget of 2013, the then-Congress administration declared that the project will be developed at a cost of Rs 7,500 crore. When the BJP took power in 2014, the attention shifted to the building of a transshipment container terminal in Vizhinjam, Kerala, and the prospect of investigating a similar transshipment port in Inayam, Kanyakumari — the latter, however, never materialised.
The Centre has now revived the outer harbour project at the VOC port at a cost of ₹7,200 crore.
