Madurai, July 2: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pressed a button in Vandiyur and silt spewed out of a point in Palk Strait a few hundred kilometres away as digging for the “Suez of the East” finally began 145 years after the project was first conceived.

As Singh pressed the button to inaugurate the ambitious Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project at 5.32 pm, a live telecast transported the gathering at the venue near Madurai to E-4, a point mid-sea 45 km off Point Calimere.

There, the Dredging Corporation of India began scooping out the seabed to create a navigable channel connecting India’s east and west coasts.

Once the 167-km channel is ready ? the target is 2008 ? freighters sailing between India’s western and eastern coasts will no longer have to detour south around the bottom of Sri Lanka, saving up to 424 nautical miles (780 km) and 30 hours of sailing time.

Its import-export trade will also save the Rs 1,000 crore a year it spends in foreign exchange owing to transhipment of cargo through Colombo.

Singh described this as an “historic day” for Tamil Nadu and India. This channel has not only been the “dream of the people of Tamil Nadu and this region for over a hundred years since it was first conceived in 1860 (around the same time that digging began in Egypt for the Suez Canal), but the Sethusamudram project is one of the most ambitious projects to be ever conceived in the Indian port sector”.

The project will particularly benefit small fishermen and ensure all-round development of the coastal areas, rejuvenating ports and harbours, the Prime Minister said. He also asked the project authorities to be “mindful and respectful of nature and the maritime environment of the channel”.

“I am sure they will certainly do it and we will make all efforts to preserve our natural heritage while implementing this project and we will also protect the livelihood of fishermen,” Singh said.

Hours before the Prime Minister arrived here, about 600 protesters demonstrating against the Rs 2427.40-crore project were arrested. They argued that it could harm marine life and threaten the business of thousands of fishermen in both countries.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi said she was aware of the fears about the impact on coral reefs in the Gulf of Mannar region that are a natural breeding ground for fish and asked the project authorities to ensure that the local ecology is not harmed. “The fishermen communities also will need to be paid particular attention,” she said.

DMK chief M. Karunanidhi also spoke on the occasion. Chief minister Jayalalithaa stayed away.