150-year dream for 150-year old ships

Swaminathan S Anklesaria AIYAR

RELIGION and history do not mix well. I shrug my shoulders at those opposing the Sethusamundaram canal because it will damage the remains of the bridge that Ram’s army used in the Ramayana.

Now, I too oppose the canal, but on economic and environmental grounds. Its rationale is more political than economic. It will become one more public sector white elephant.

The Palk Straits, between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, are so shallow that only small boats can pass through. So, east-west coastal ships have to go around Sri Lanka. So do ships from Europe and Africa to the east coast.

Sethusamundaram will be a furrow dredged in the sea-bed of the Straits, deep enough to accommodate ships of 20,000 DWT. The canal will save ships both distance (saving fuel) and time (saving daily charges for chartering ships).

So, it should be able to charge ships for passage, like the Suez and Panama Canals. This revenue is supposed

 to make the project economic.

The project is a political gift for Tamil Nadu. It will hugely help Tuticorin port, which today can receive ships only from the West, and not the East. It will improve the viability of existing and planned minor ports in the state. Hence, Tamils call the canal a 150-year dream about to come true (it was first proposed around 1850).

Dreams are costless, but canals are not. Project documents claim that the canal will save ships 36 hours of time and 570 nautical miles of distance. But a recent study by Jacob John in the Economic and Political Weekly exposes these claims as highly exaggerated.

Up to 70 percent of the traffic through the canal is projected to come from Europe and Africa. And John estimates that the time saving from Europe to Kolkata will be only eight hours, and the distance saving 215 nautical miles.

From Africa to Kolkata, the time taken will actually increase by 3.5 hours (being piloted through the canal is a slow process), and distance reduced will be only 70 nautical miles.

John calculates that ships could lose up to $ 4,992 per passage if they are charged the tariff laid down in project documents.

In which case ships will find it cheaper to go round Sri Lanka. If the government cuts the proposed tariff to attract traffic, John estimates that the project’s rate of return could fall to an uneconomic 2.5 percent. I expect that the project will also suffer cost overruns in capital and maintenance dredging, and hence be in the red.

The canal is supposed to be ready by November 2008, not far off. So why has the project not been able to sign up potential users? The finance minister has appealed to private shipping companies to participate in a project that will benefit them, yet no shipping company has come forward. The economics of the canal look much too dicey.

The Suez and Panama Canals save ships thousands of miles, and that makes them profitable. Sethusamundaram is not remotely comparable. It is designed for small ships (the project documents talk of 20,000 DWT), whereas the Panama Canal takes ships of up to 65,000 DWT and Suez takes ships up to 150,000 DWT.

The Suez and Panama canals were dug through land corridors, and once dug stayed dug - they did not face sand inundation from the sea. However, Sethusamundaram will be a furrow in the sea-bed, at the constant mercy of currents bearing sand.

The government’s environmental assessment has cleared the project on ecological grounds. Yet, much of that assessment was not about sand incursion, but about fears of possible damage to coral reefs, coastal erosion, oil spills, and changes in ocean salinity and temperature. Besides, the ecological studies were done from the Indian side of the Palk Straits, and not the Sri Lankan side, and so are technically incomplete.

My own major fear is not so much that the project will ruin the environment, but that the environment will ruin the project. I fear that ocean currents will keep dumping fresh sand in the furrow of the canal.

The Palk Straits are shallow not by accident but because sand-bearing currents have made them so. Combating the full force of nature is perilous, expensive and sometimes impossible.

The project envisages maintenance dredging of two million cubic metres per year, infinitely more than required by the Suez and Panama canals.

Jacob suspects (and so do I) that actual maintenance dredging will far exceed project projections, rendering the canal uneconomic. An extreme event (like the 2005 tsunami) could dump enough sand to close down the canal.

Finally, global shipping is shifting to ever-larger vessels. Bulk carriers and tankers often exceed 200,000 DWT, and those under 60,000 DWT are being phased out as uneconomic. Old general cargo vessels have been replaced by container ships, which started small but now exceed 35,000 DWT, and may soon touch 75,000 DWT. Such vessels cannot use the canal.

So, Sethusamundaram will be unsuitable for the large vessels of the 21st century. It is a 150-year old idea for 150-year old ships. That may be its epitaph.

Courtesy: Times of India

Shipping channel project creates religious furore in India

Muneeza NAQVI

IN INDIA, where religion is all-pervasive, it was a comment destined to misfire.

At issue was a US$ 577 million (Euro 416 million) project to dredge a shipping channel in between India and Sri Lanka - right through a chain of limestone shoals and sand that Hindus believe was built by the God King Rama.

The plan had already angered Hindu leaders, but things grew far hotter after government archaeologists spoke up earlier this week. A report to the Supreme Court by the Archaeological Survey of India said the shoals were the result of “several millennia of wave action and sedimentation” and “the issue cannot be viewed solely relying on the contents of mythological text.”

Those were fighting words.

To right-wing Hindu groups, the government was dismissing Hinduism’s most sacred texts.

L.K. Advani, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the most powerful Hindu political party, called the government’s position “an insult to millions of Hindus all over the world.”

Hindu activists marched across the country. They blocked traffic and stopped trains.

On Friday, grappling with the potential political backlash of offending millions of Hindus, the government sheepishly agreed to withdraw the statement by the Archaeological Survey of India.

“Rama is an integral part of the life of the Hindu,” Law Minister H.R. Bharadwaj told reporters.

The government has bought time by asking the Supreme Court for three months to reframe its legal position on the channel, and the next hearing on the matter is scheduled for January.

But the decision was a major political blow for the Congress party-led government, and is sure to slow the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project - perhaps for years. It has also given enormous political ammunition to the opposition, which is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The issue highlights what most political observers have long known about Indian politics - that the secular political system doesn’t mean the state steers clear of religion.

Instead, it most often means the government has to walk a fine line: using religion to gain votes, when possible, while studiously avoiding offending any particular faith.

In India, which is 81 percent Hindu, that mostly means making sure Hindu political parties don’t get upset.

“It is pure politics,” political scientist Mushirul Hasan said of the uproar. “The BJP is a political party that has blatantly exploited religious issues since its inception.”

The Sethusamudram project has been discussed for decades as a way to speed the time it takes ships to travel between India’s coasts. Because the shoal-filled waterway is too shallow, ships currently have to sail around Sri Lanka. The channel is expected to reduce the sailing time by more than 30 hours.

The present government finally sanctioned the project in 2005, proposing deepening the 165-kilometer-long, 300-meter wide waterway, and opening it to ships in 2008.

But last month, amid criticism from Hindu leaders, the Supreme Court stepped in and barred all work until it had heard from both sides.

There has been criticism from other groups, too. Conservationists say the project will destroy marine life and take jobs from Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen. Some scientists worry the dredging could affect the flow of currents and water temperatures.

But it took the Hindu protests to turn the issue into page-one news.

According to Hindu mythology, Rama built the chain of shoals and reefs - known to most Hindus as Rama Setu, or Rama’s Bridge - with the help of the monkey god Hanuman and his army of helpers. They used it to travel to Sri Lanka to battle the demon king Ravana, who had abducted Rama’s wife, Sita.

Turning it into a construction site was nothing short of a slap at the Ramayana and Ramcharitamanas - sacred, ancient epics about the life of Rama.

“It is a crude attempt at insulting our culture, civilizational heritage and Hindu sentiments,” said a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Hindustan Times reported.

The government, for its part, couldn’t apologize enough.

“The central government is alive and conscious of religious sensibilities,” the government said as it withdrew its statement, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. “The central government has total respect for all religions, and Hinduism in particular, in the context of the present case.”

NEW DELHI (AP)