Centre backs Sethu project -- Pramila Krishnan, DC
Chennai, Sept. 16, 2013
Environmentalists and marine biologists are aghast at the stand taken by the Centre before the Supreme Court that it wished to go ahead with the Sethudamudram Ship Channel Project (SSCP) in the original form, thereby rejecting the RK Pachauri Committee report that had recommended an alternative alignment since the proposed channel through the eco-sensitive Rama Sethu (Adam's Bridge) was not feasible economically and ecologically.
The affidavit filed by the Union Ministry of Shipping in the apex court is inspired more by 'greed and vote-bank plitics', they said, expressing the fear that the Centre's stand was against national interests and would most certainly cause irreparable and irreversible damage to the Gulf of Mannar biosphere.
Expressing shock that the Centre could now rubbish its own (Pachauri) expert committee, eminet environmentalist Dr. S. Kalyanaraman said, 'For the Government of India to now reject it own committee's report makes a mockery of the rule of law in this country.'
The responsibility of a nation, he pointed out, was to respect its own guidelines for approving projects. The law required that environmental impact analysis should be carried out for every project. The Pachauri committee thus constituted had gone into the environmental issues after studying for two years and came up with 'an emphatic conclusion that this project is not ecologically feasible.'
'Nature is protecting us from various disasters free of cost. We should not harm it for a pittance that we may earn by diverting the ships through the Sethusamudram project. If we calculate the loss of biodiversity in terms of money, it is higher than any amount of money you could imagine earned through this project', said Prof. M. Arunachalam, head of Sri Parama Kalyani center for environmental sciences at the Manmohan Sundarnar University.
'The Sethu bridge lies in ecologically sensitive area and it is also cyclone prone, particularly during the northeast monsoon. Apart from that, the Environmental Impact Assessment report for the project was carried out using secondary data and old published reports. The present marine ecosystem was not studied for evaluating the project'.
Marine economists argue that the Sethu project is not the only option for moving goods between the east coast and the west. Container ports could be built at Vizhinjam, Cochin and Tuticorin and freight corriors established from there through the rest of the country. Similarly pipelines could be laid for transporting oil and gas from the western ports to the east. 'Why go into a project which will benefit only a very few navigating vessels carrying less than 30,000 tonnes because of the very shallow waters of Gulf of Mannar?' wondered Dr. Kalyanaraman.
IIM, Bangalore had done an economic analysis of the Sethu project and found it was not economically feasible. Also, geologists have reported that the region is a fragile marine reserve subject to volcanic and tectonic activity. Globally famous tsunami expert Tad S. Murthy had cautioned that cutting through Adam's Bridge would case devastation of the coastline from Nagapattinam to Kollam in the event of a tsunami.
http://www.dc-epaper.com/PUBLICATIONS/DC/DCC/2013/09/17/ArticleHtmls/AGAINST-PACHAURI-COMMISSION-Centre-backs-Sethu-project-17092013004037.shtml?Mode=1
Experts oppose Sethu Shipping Canal Project
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130827/news-current-affairs/article/experts-oppose-sethu-shipping-canal-project
See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/09/centre-rejects-pachauri-panel-report.html