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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  Consultant suggests alternative route for Sethusamudram project
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Consultant suggests alternative route for Sethusamudram project

Estimated expenditure for a channel for ships with cargo capacity of 30,000 tonnes is around Rs2,350 crore

A satellite image of Adam’s Bridge released by National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the US.Premium
A satellite image of Adam’s Bridge released by National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the US.

Bengaluru: Sethusamudram, one of India’s most controversial and ambitious maritime projects, is set to change course with a government-owned consultant suggesting an alternative through the Pamban Pass without damaging the Adam’s Bridge or so-called Ram Sethu, which is considered sacred to Hindus.

The estimated expenditure for providing a navigable channel for ships with a capacity to carry 30,000 tonnes of cargo through the Pamban alignment is around 2,350 crore, RITES Ltd wrote in a pre-feasibility report submitted to the shipping ministry early this month. Mint has reviewed a copy. RITES was mandated to explore the possibility of a different route for the project.

The Pamban channel is a 136km-long narrow and shallow channel between the two coral reef islands of Pullivasal and Krusadai.

The cost estimate worked out by RITES includes the cost of replacement of the lift span of the Pamban railway bridge, dredging cost of 36 million cubic metres of sand and other materials from the sea bed, cost of vessel traffic management system (VTMS) and other shore-based support to the project.

The replacement and increase of the railway bridge span will require stoppage of rail movement for 24 months.

“To facilitate navigation of vessels such as capesize ships (the biggest of the dry bulk carriers), the restriction of air draft of 21 metre due to the road over bridge across the Pamban Pass needs to be removed apart from additional dredging cost. One option which can be explored is an undersea tunnel through which road and rail movement to Rameswaram island can be maintained. The undersea tunnel would obviate the requirement of the rail and road bridge. The estimated cost of tunnel construction is about 15,000 crore. The dredging cost would be additional and would increase progressively as the draft (depth) requirement increases," RITES recommended.

The Sethusamudram project seeks to create a shorter shipping route between the east and west coasts but has been halted since July 2009 on the basis of petitions filed by individuals and groups opposed to it.

Shipping minister Nitin Gadkari has told Parliament that his ministry would make efforts to see that the new navigational channel is put in place without damaging the Ram Sethu structure.

Billed as India’s Suez Canal, the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project is expected to reduce ship journeys between the western and eastern coasts by as much as 30 hours, or up to 424 nautical miles (one nautical mile is 1.82km), by creating a channel between the Indian mainland and Sri Lanka. The original project cost was set at 2,427.40 crore. Out of this, 766.82 crore was spent on the project.

Ships now take a long detour around Sri Lanka. In the absence of a continuous navigational channel connecting the east and west coasts, the ships sailing between the east and west coasts of India and along the international shipping routes have to circumnavigate Sri Lanka, due to the presence of a reef, known as Adam’s Bridge, located southeast of Rameswaram near Pamban in Tamil Nadu. To overcome this shortcoming, an ambitious scheme was formulated to create a continuous navigational channel around Indian coast.

The project involved boring a new shipping lane connecting the Gulf of Mannar and Bay of Bengal through Palk Strait and Palk Bay. Dredging work in Adam’s Bridge region, the controversial part of the project, was stopped by the Supreme Court.

Hindu groups, led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), had opposed the project saying it would destroy a rock and sand ridge built by a god. Hindu religious texts recount the life of Lord Ram, a Hindu god who is said to have commanded his army of monkeys to build a bridge to Sri Lanka thousands of years ago so he could rescue his kidnapped wife Sita.

However, dredging work on the Palk Strait, the non-controversial portion of the project, was on until July 2009.

Pursuant to orders of the Supreme Court, the central government had set up a committee of experts headed by R.K. Pachauri, director general of The Energy & Resources (TERI) Institute, to consider an alternative alignment for the project. The Pachauri committee said in its report submitted in July 2012 that an alternative alignment was not “economically and ecologically feasible".

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Published: 27 Nov 2014, 01:12 AM IST
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