Sethusamudram ship channel project set to be beached
- December 29, 2020
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Sethusamudram ship channel project set to be beached
Subject : Economy
Context : Sethusamudram Corporation Ltd (SCL) is set to be wound up, bringing to end an ambitious maritime project that turned controversial over religious sentiments.
Concept :
- The project was conceived in 1860 by Alfred Dundas Taylor
- In 2005, the Government of India approved Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project
- It is a proposed project to create a shipping route in the shallow straits between India and Sri Lanka across the Palk Bay cutting across Rama Setu.
- The project involves digging a 44.9-nautical-mile long deep-water channel linking the shallow Palk Strait with the Gulf of Mannar.
- The channel would be dredged in the Sethusamudram sea passing through the limestone shoals of Ram Sethu.
Rama Setu (Adam’s Bridge):
- Rama Setu is also known as Adam’s Bridge.
- The 50 km long bridge separates the Gulf of Mannar (south-west) from the Palk Strait (northeast).
- It is a chain of limestone shoals, between Pamban Island (a.k.a. Rameswaram Island) off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, India, and Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.
- The bridge starts as a chain of shoals from the Dhanushkodi tip of India’s Pamban Island and ends at Sri Lanka’s Mannar Island.