Saturday, September 29, 2007

White Elephant of Sethusamundaram

The central government gives to clean cheat to Sethusamundaram canal. It is a political gift to Tamilnadu government. The project has got a lot of problems.
Sethusamundaram is the project at Palk Straits between Tamilnadu and Srilanka. Enviornment survey has been done only from Indian side not from Srilankan side so it is incomlete survey.
Sethusamundaram will make by dugging through sea beds. It is incomparrable with Panama and Suez because this canals was made by dugging land corridors. Sethusamundaram will face the probem of sand dumping through sea currents. It will spoil the economics of canal. Commercially it will become a white elephant for government of India.
The most important thing is that project states that ships will come from Europe and Africa and they pay for the canal but the canal is designed only for 20000 DWT vessel size. The capacity of Panama is 65000 DWT. Suez has got a capacity of 150000 DWT. How can big ships come through this canal. The ship industry is now shifted towards more and more big vessels. Cargo vessels are replaced by container vessels with minimum size of 35000 DWT. Bulk containers exeed more than 200000 DWT. They will not use a Sethusamundaram.

No comments: