With the global environment on the brink of existential climate danger, there should be zero tolerance for development projects that neglect strong environmental safeguards. A $1 billion project, the Vizhinjam international seaport, approved in 2015 and currently under construction, is damaging the ecology and livelihoods in India’s southwestern state of Kerala. This is my home state, known for its stunning landscape, diversity of mountain ranges, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, in addition to high indicators of progress on education and health.
The project is currently drawing widespread criticism. It is not too late to take lessons to heart on the imperative to integrate scientific concerns into this development project and to muster the political will to change course midstream.
Vizhinjam’s proximity to the country’s east and west coast shipping routes makes it a valuable port location and has the potential for trade and tourism. But the construction of a seaport without anything close to adequate environmental safeguards in such a fragile area of the world is partly responsible, in addition to human-made climate change, for a disappearing coastline.
Another serious error is the displacement of fisherfolks, with some 350 families on the north side of the port that have directly lost homes to beach erosion without adequate compensation — the norm in development projects.
From an economic perspective, the primary beneficiary — the state of Kerala — stands to lose financially, while the Adani Group, the project concessionaire, gains, mainly from the real estate given to it as part of the project.
In addition to climate change causing sea-level rise, there is clear global evidence that dredging and sand mining, of the type carried out post-2015 in Vizhinjam, create coastal erosion by altering wave patterns and sediment movement. Breakwater and dredging interface with the natural wave processes.
We’ve seen this happen: The accelerated disappearance of beaches in Greece and Cyprus is attributed more to the construction of new harbors than to climate factors. The barrier effect of the port of Valencia, Spain, as in Puducherry, India, is responsible for beach erosion.
A combination of hard engineering options — seawalls, breakwaters — and soft, natural options — vegetation, dunes — can control waves and sediment transport, but they need to be carefully designed. Sand bypassing is recommended in some environments. Such mitigation must be part of the cost estimates, which the project at Vizhinjam, a high erosion coast, has not done.
Studies reveal the drastic shoreline changes in Kerala in the past 50 years due to the erection of hard structures — which the Vizhinjam port would be a major example of. This has been ignored in the project’s environmental clearances. One study shows that during 2006-2020, the sea submerged some 2.62 square kilometers (more than 1 square miles) in the port’s district — the coast between Pozhiyoor and Anchuthengu. The shoreline report from the consultant appointed by the concessionaire shows significant erosion north of the port during construction. Unfortunately, the project’s Environment Impact Assessment did not analyze these risks.
Damages to marine biodiversity including sea sponges and corals, and fish catch underlie the loss of thousands of livelihoods and the need for rehabilitation. Fisherfolk are losing access to beaches, and their age-old livelihoods are at risk.
A more turbulent sea endangers the lives of fishermen, who are unable to maneuver their vessels. Accidents have increased close to the shore, and several fishermen have died in the more volatile waters, especially in the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram. The state capital has entirely lost its iconic Shanghumukham Beach to sea erosion over the last few years. Scientists warn that port activity will destroy the uniquely fertile fishing ground in the area.
The project EIA had not envisaged or set aside compensations for the displaced or lost properties due to erosion on the northern side of the port, which was not considered part of the project area, but is severely affected. The sums now being provided to the tune of 940 million rupees ($11.4 million) according to the government of Kerala data are an afterthought. They are also inadequate considering the critical compensation needs for the large numbers of people displaced on the north side. This predicament is set to worsen if construction proceeds without vital safeguards.
Though the government of Kerala finances 67% investment of the project, the net present value for the state is negative, at — 38.6 billion rupees, or $474.2 million, which would normally be a non-starter for any rational project. The Adani Group, with 33% investment, is expected to get a net present value of 6.07 billion rupees. Studies concluded that Vizhinjam as a standalone port project is economically unviable. But in addition to the prime real estate folded into the agreement, the Adani Group benefits from the standard concession period of 30 years extended by 10 years to collect extra revenue, and access to quarrying 7 million tons of stones from the Western Ghats to build breakwaters.
Compensation for the fishing community needs to correspond to losses in food security, livelihoods and loss of life, and not only within the narrow geographical definition of the project.
—A report by the independent Auditor General in 2017 warned that at the end of the concessional period, the government of Kerala would have incurred project losses of Rs 5,608 crores. It also found that the tendering process was flawed, and that the agreement favored the Adani Group at the expense of the state.
Several capital investments worldwide, such as China’s Three Gorges project and India’s Tata Mundra power plant have revealed different types of environmental and social design failures in the project cycle. In India in the mid-1990s, the inadequacy of the rate of return, among other risks, was evident in Enron’s ill-fated Dhabol power project in Maharashtra, which had a devastating effect on the state’s economy. We cannot let the lessons from these past failures go unheeded, and must recognize that political will is needed to make meaningful mid-course shifts.
The Vizhinjam project is now one-third into construction, and must be put to a new, mid-term independent review, taking into account the consequences of the past five years, before construction resumes — inconvenient as it may be for the project schedules. This is a rational and highly justifiable step in the precarious path the project is on. The state government is taking this idea on board with the announcement last week of an expert panel to study coastal erosion. A step in the right direction but one that must be done with independence, objectivity and credibility.
The Adani Group and the government of Kerala must then implement critical safeguards on construction, dredging, and sea reclamation spurring erosion that physical and natural scientists have shown to be endangering the state’s world-class but fragile ecosystems and biodiversity. The independent review mentioned above should be used as a blueprint to avert further damage.
Equally, compensation for the fishing community, the rightful local residents, needs to correspond to losses in food security, lives and livelihoods, and not only within the narrow geographical definition of the project, but in those areas beyond that are adversely affected by the port development. Future social displacements and losses must be factored into project costs.
Following the eye-catching findings of the Auditor General, the mid-term independent review of the project should also evaluate the lopsided and hard-to-comprehend financial arrangements between the Adani Group and the Government of Kerala.
In the interest of the state of Kerala, rightly labeled “God’s Own Country,” Adani should genuinely take on board the detrimental findings by environmental and social scientists on communities and coastal and marine damages as part of the project design, implementation, cost estimates, and allocation — a lesson for infrastructure projects everywhere.