Page 393 - SSB Interview: The Complete Guide, Second Edition

Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project proposes linking the Palk Bay
and the Gulf of Mannar between India and Sri Lanka by creating a shipping
channel through the shallow sea, sometimes called Sethu Samudram, and
through the chain of islands variously known as Ramar Palam, Ram Sethu

and Adam’s Bridge. This would provide a continuous navigable sea route in
and around the Indian Peninsula. The project involves digging a 44.9 nautical

mile (83km) long deepwater channel linking the shallow water of the Palk
Strait with the Gulf of Mannar. Conceived as early as 1860 by Alfred Dundas
Taylor, it recently received the approval of the Indian government. The

Government of India plans to break limestone shells and shores to Ram’s
Bridge or Ram Sethu as part of the implementation of this project. A few
organisations are opposing damage to Rama Sethu on religious,

environmental and economic grounds. Many of these parties or organisations
support the implementation of this project using one of the five alternative
alignments considered earlier without damaging a structure considered sacred

by Hindus. The current alignment is planned as a mid-ocean channel, which
is unprecedented. Other famous shipping canal projects like Suez Canal and
Panama Canal projects are land-based channels.

History

Due to shallow waters, Sethusamudram presents a formidable hindrance to
navigation through the Palk Strait. Though trade across the India-Sri Lanka
divide has been active since at least the first millennium BCE, it has been
limited to small boats and dinghies. Larger ocean-going vessels from the

West have had to navigate around Sri Lanka to reach India’s eastern coast.
Eminent British geographer Major James Rennell, who surveyed the region

as a young officer in the late eighteenth century, suggested that a “navigable
passage could be maintained by dredging the strait of Ramisseram”.
However, little notice was given to his proposal, perhaps because it came
from “so young and unknown an officer”, and the idea was only revived 60

years later. Efforts were made in 1838 to dredge the canal, but did not
succeed in keeping the passage navigable for any vessels except those with a

shallow draft.