SILT ROUTE

Authorities at the Tuticorin Port Trust, the nodal agency for implementing the project for the next two years, are upbeat, estimating that 3,055 ships will pass through the channel in the first year, or nine per day.

The pro-Sethu lobby also promises the project will 8216;8216;contribute to the national economy, develop the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu, and improve the international competitiveness of India8217;s exports.8217;8217; From the defence and security points of view, the channel is expected to be 8216;8216;an invaluable asset enabling easier and quicker access between the coasts. Indian Coast Guard and Naval ships will not have to circle Sri Lanka.8217;8217;

Canal Politics

BUT, of course, not everyone agrees.Leading the project-bashing brigade is Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. In a strongly worded statement last week, she objected to the 8216;8216;hastiness8217;8217; of Union Shipping Minister T R Baalu in putting up a gala show in Madurai on July 2 to inaugurate the Sethu. It rankles all the more because Amma supports the project in principle as a major initiative in the state8217;s development.

For years, the Sethusamudram project has figured in election manifestos of every major Dravidian party and later in the Common Minimum Programmes of coalition governments. 8216;8216;Many prime ministers, from Indira Gandhi to V P Singh and the Rajiv Gandhi, have addressed public meetings on the Marina Beach promising to make the Sethusamudram project a reality. Today, no Tamil Nadu politician can dare to oppose the project,8217;8217; says former deputy chairman of the Chennai Port Trust K S Ramakrishnan. Their slogan: The project will change the face of Tamil Nadu8217;s coastal districts, initiating a massive economic upsurge.

But with Baalu effectively putting his own face to the project and flaunting it as a DMK achievement8212;apart from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, his party chief M Karunanidhi was present at the stone-laying ceremony yesterday8212;the project comes as a huge boost for its electoral prospects in the crucial May 2006 Assembly elections, especially after its humiliating defeat in the recent by-polls.

And, despite her cries of foul play about the manner in which 8216;mandatory8217; procedures were given the go-by for the Union Cabinet nod for the project, even Amma has had to concede privately that the DMK has staged a virtual political coup.

For public consumption, Jayalalithaa has adopted the high environmental ground, accusing Baalu of 8216;8216;bulldozing his way through the environmental clearance processes8217;8217; required for this project with the help of another DMK minister, A Raja, who was 8216;8216;conveniently8217;8217; in the Union Environment Ministry.

Besides the okays for the massive dredging of the ocean floor, Jayalalithaa has made the 8216;8216;worries and apprehensions8217;8217; of several lakh fishermen her pet cause. It was 8216;8216;shocking8217;8217;, she said, that the Centre had given the OK for the project without the NoC of the Tamil Nadu government and the State Pollution Control Board.

Baalu, on his part, retorted, 8216;8216;I don8217;t need any NoC from the state government.8217;8217;

Clearing the air
FIRST proposed in 1860 by British commander A D Taylor, the Sethusamudram project was cleared by the Nehru cabinet in 1955. Three committees were set up in 1955, 1983 and 1996 to study the proposal. When the project was sanctioned by the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs in September 2004, the Vajpayee government ordered an environmental study by the National Environment Engineering Research Institute NEERI.

Much of the storm kicked up by environmentalists and fishermen8217;s groups has been triggered by NEERI8217;s Rapid Environment Impact Assessment report. The activists8217; allegation that NEERI depended heavily on secondary data instead of conducting any study of its own has overshadowed the Centre8217;s claims of the project8217;s economic feasibility.

This is precisely the card Jayalalithaa is banking on: The TNPCB8217;s expert committee, appointed to study all aspects of the Sethusamudram project, has found 8216;8216;a number of deficiencies8217;8217; in the NEERI report.

In his writ petition in the Madras High Court last week, Ossie Fernandez of the Coastal Action Network8212;a group of representatives of fishing communities and environmental bodies8212;said, 8216;8216;Dredging of ocean floor can have a lasting impact on the environment, as can be seen in other parts of the world. Gulf of Mannar region has fast moving currents that can fill up the dredged passage with sediments. This will require secondary dredging.8217;8217;

Moreover, he pointed out, the project would destroy the livelihood of 10 lakh fishermen in 138 coastal villages, besides causing irreversible damage to marine ecology.

There are also economic concerns. Ramakrishnan alleges that 60-70 per cent of the traffic would have to continue sailing around Sri Lanka as the channel will have a depth of just 12 metres.

But flush with the success of the Cabinet approval for the project, Baalu is hardly listening. Alleging that the 8216;8216;anti-social8217;8217; protesters were being instigated by 8216;8216;the ruling AIADMK bent on disrupting the launch out of malice8217;8217;, he declares: 8216;8216;People of Tamil Nadu will not forgive them as this project is the fulfillment of a 150-year-old dream.8217;8217;

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