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| Saturday, 01 January 2005 |
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Tidal waves revive Sethusamudram canal controversy New Delhi (PTI) Tsunami waves, which killed thousands in India and Sri Lanka, are likely to force rethinking on the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP) that has already drawn flak from environmentalists and geologists. The Rs. 2,000 crore project envisages dredging the shallow seabed between the Tamilnadu coast and Sri Lanka to create a shipping channel. This will allow merchant ships and naval vessels sail from Arabian sea to the Bay of Bengal in India's territorial waters avoiding circling of Sri Lanka thereby saving time and fuel. But the possible adverse geological and ecological consequences of digging a trench - 150 km long 300 metres wide and 12 metres deep - in the seabed requiring removal and safe dumping of 88 million cubic metres of dredged material have raised a controversy. "I tend to believe that the environmental viability of the project is to be questioned," C. P. Rajendran, a renowned geologist at the Centre for Earth Science Studies in Trivandrum told PTI. "From an earth science point of view, I believe that the project area is highly unstable in terms of rapid sedimentation rates, high velocity ocean currents and cyclonic storms." Rajendran says "unless we have a clear and unambiguous understanding of the sedimentation rates along the various stretches of the Palk Bay strait, the sustainability of the project cannot be guaranteed." |
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