Won’t Damage Ram Setu for Shipping Channel Project: Centre to SC

The Sethusamudram project will create a shipping route in the shallow straits between India and Sri Lanka.

The Centre said on 16 March that Ram Setu won’t be destroyed “in the interest of the nation”.

(Photo Courtesy: NASA’s World Wind/Wikimedia Commons)

The Centre on Friday, 16 March, informed the Supreme Court that in the "interest of the nation,” it will not damage the mythological Ram Sethu for its Sethusamudram Ship Channel project.

The Union Ministry of Shipping, in its affidavit, told a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra that the PIL filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy against the Sethusamudram project can now be disposed off by taking note of its stand.

That the government of India intends to explore an alternative to the earlier alignment of Sethusamudram Ship Channel project without affecting/damaging the Adam’s Bridge/Ram Sethu in the interest of the nation.

Affidavit filed by the Shipping Ministry

Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for the Centre, said that the Centre has filed the response in pursuance of the earlier directions and the PIL can now be disposed off. Swamy had filed a PIL against the ship channel project and had sought direction to the Centre that the mythological Ram Sethu not be touched.

In November 2017, the Supreme Court had granted six weeks’ time to the Narendra Modi-led Centre to file an affidavit on their stand on Ram Setu.

The Ram Sethu is a continuous stretch of limestone shoals that runs from Pamban island near Rameshwaram in South India to Mannar Island, off the northern coast of Sri Lanka.

The Sethusamudram shipping channel project will create a shipping route in the shallow straits between India and Sri Lanka – passing through Ram Setu.

Under the Sethusamudram project, an 83-km-long deep water channel is to be created, linking Mannar with Palk Strait, by extensive dredging and removal of the limestone shoals which constitute the mythological Sethu.

The project has been facing protests from some political parties, environmentalists and some Hindu religious groups.

(With inputs from PTI and ANI)