The Hindu : Ferry service between Colombo, Kochi on the anvil

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 27, 2004

International

International - India & World

Ferry service between Colombo, Kochi on the anvil

By S. Vydhianathan

COLOMBO, MARCH 26. As the ferry service between Tuticorin and Colombo has been ruled out, it is now being planned to introduce one between Colombo and Kochi or Vizhinjam near Thiruvananthapuram.

The new proposal will take time as the process is at a preliminary stage, according to an official of the Indian High Commission here.

The ferry service was dropped following opposition by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, on security grounds. She also opposed a land bridge linking southern Tamil Nadu with the island mooted by the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe.Talking to a group of visiting Indian journalists, the official said Indian fishermen were arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy only when they trespassed into Sri Lankan waters. The charge that the Navy was harassing them was not true, he said.

He said that on an average about 300 trawlers from the southern coast of India were crossing the international border. In fact, it was the Sri Lankan fishermen who, he said, had a grievance as Indian fishermen were exploiting their marine resources.

The introduction of a free trade policy between the two countries had improved the trade.

The Indian Government, he said, had agreed to give a grant of $7.5 million for a state-of-the-art cancer centre here. Besides, it had proposed an aid of Rs. 20 crores for a multi-speciality hospital at Dickoya near Kandy.

On the extradition of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader, V. Prabakaran, who was facing a death sentence in India in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the official said the Commission was writing to the Sri Lankan Government.

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