Chennai, Sept. 22: Shipping minister T.R. Baalu today said the Centre would go ahead with the present layout of the Sethusamudram ship canal after convincing the Supreme Court that no alternative plan was viable.
The Centre has sought three months’ time from the apex court to study alternative routes, as suggested by the BJP. The current blueprint involves cutting through an islet chain that the Sangh parivar claims is a bridge built by Ram.
Baalu, however, said: “As far as my ministry is concerned, the matter is settled, though I will obey whatever the Supreme Court says.”
The court has stayed dredging of the Adam’s Bridge following several petitions but the minister sounded confident of convincing it.
Armed with a thick collection of files, he said the project had considered six layouts, three of which had been ruled out because the dredging would have harmed the national biosphere reserve and marine park in the Gulf of Mannar.
“Alignment 4 — a canal cutting through the Dhanushkoti peninsula — had already been rejected on environmental grounds by the NDA government in April 1999,” Baalu said. “The movement of oil tankers could lead to spills.”
Alignment 5 — dredging a deep canal east of Dhanushkoti — was nixed by an experts committee since “vessels cannot negotiate the short curvature in the route off Dhanushkoti”, Baalu read out from a file.
That left only Alignment 6, “originating from Tuticorin New Harbour in the Gulf of Mannar, extending towards the east and further northeast up to the south of Pamban Island and then cutting through Adam’s Bridge and finally joining the Bay of Bengal”.
Baalu’s party, the DMK, has been the most gung-ho of UPA partners about the project that is expected to bring huge economic benefits to coastal Tamil Nadu. After a jittery Congress withdrew an affidavit questioning Ram’s historical existence, DMK chief M. Karunanidhi has continued to dub the epic hero a fictional character and cited his drinking habits.
Baalu said Karunanidhi’s statement that his party was not against an alternative route should not be misunderstood. “My leader was only expressing his concern that the project should come through.”
It was the NDA that had proposed, studied and cleared the current blueprint. Now the BJP has suddenly raised a religious issue to fan communal passions before the Gujarat elections, the minister said.