The directions were given by the minister during the course of a review of development activities at the terminal, envisaged as the first transshipment port of India, managed by the DP World.
The Kochi International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), locally known as the Vallarpadam terminal, is located strategically on the coastline in Kerala.
"We are developing a transshipment facility on the Indian port. Resolving various issues of the Vallarpadam terminal is one of the top priorities of the Ministry of Shipping," Mandaviya was quoted as saying in a statement by the shipping ministry.
He directed officials to chalk out a strategy to tackle various challenges and actualise the vision of a transshipment hub in the country and a pioneer hub in South Asia, the statement said.
A transshipment hub is a terminal at the port that handles containers, stores them temporarily and transfers them to other ships for the onward destination.
It also added that he Vallarpadam terminal fulfils all the criteria needed to develop it as a transshipment hub as it is positioned in proximity to international sea routes. Besides, it can be easily accessed through all Indian feeder ports, the statement said.
The statement said it has multiple weekly feeder connections to all ports on western and eastern coasts of India -- from Mundra to Kolkata -- and has proximity to key hinterland markets of India.
"It has the infrastructure to manage large ships and capacity to scale it up as per requirement," the statement said adding that the Vallarpadam terminal is proposed to be developed as the most-preferred gateway for southern India and a leading transshipment hub of South Asia.
The first phase of the Rs 6,250-crore ICTT at the Vallarpadam island was dedicated to the nation in February 2011, describing the project as a "long-awaited milestone" in the development of the country's logistics infrastructure. NAM HRS