Baalu inaugurates second phase of Sethu dredging

Rameswaram, Dec 11 (UNI) Eighteeen months after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched it with fanfare, dredging in the second phase of the prestigious Sethusamudram Shipping Channel Project (SSCP) began in the Adams Bridge area today.

The second phase of dredging works was inaugurated by Union Shipping Minister T R Baalu, who exuded confidence that the nearly Rs 2400 crore project would become operational in November 2008 as scheduled.

''The SCCP will be operational in November 2008 as scheduled and dredging in the two stretches of the 167-km-long channel will be completed by pressing more dredging vessels,'' Mr Baalu told reporters.

The project envisaged digging of a shipping channel that would link the eastern and western coasts of India, helping ships to avoid the present circumnavigation around Sri Lanka and saving 424 nautical miles (780 km) of sailing distance and 30 hours of time.

The Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) had stationed dredging vessels with the capacity of dredging 30,000 cubic metres daily.

The SSCP of 157-km length required dredging at two points--54-km dredging near Point Calimere in the Palk Straits and 35-km stretch in the Adam's Bridge.

The project had begun on a resounding note when the DCI took up deepening of a stretch of the Palk Straits, adjoining the Bay of Bengal, moments after Dr Singh launched it in Madurai on July two last year.

Dredging in the first phase of work in Palk Straits area was on full swing and it was expected to be completed six months ahead of schedule in August 2008 with the deployment of another 7,400 cubic mt capacity vessel next month to speed up the process.

It would join the 4700 cubic mt vessel, which was at present engaged in the dredging process in the Palk Straits.

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