The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Efforts on to highlight advantages of Sethu project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 19, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Efforts on to highlight advantages of Sethu project

Special Correspondent

Fears of the shipping industry allayed

CHENNAI: The Tuticorin Port Trust (TPT) will endeavour to market the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project (SSCP) by highlighting the cost and time-saving advantages to shippers, according to N.K. Raghupathy, Chairman and Managing Director, SSCP and Chairman, TPT.

Making a presentation on the project at a meeting organised by the Hindustan Chamber of Commerce here on Friday, he said as a first step towards selling the project to the shippers, he would be meeting representatives of the ship-owners association and the container ship liners organisations in Mumbai on October 19.

Besides explaining to them the cost and time advantages, efforts would be made at the meeting to work out the tariff rates for using the channel, he said.

Mr. Raghupathy allayed apprehensions of the shipping industry about the economic viability of the project. He made it clear that the economic viability of the channel hinged on drastic changes effected in the shipping route to the advantage of the shippers.

Concerns about the project's economic viability were expressed on the basis of gross underestimation of the traffic potential through the channel and also the revenue it could generate based on certain GDP growth rates, he said.

The Naval vessels and the Coast Guard ships using the channel would also have to pay commercial rates to the channel authority.

The channel would give sheltered water route from the western ports to the eastern ports. He said this would be a unique selling point of this project. Cargo vessels from Paradip and Haldia ports carrying coal to the Tuticorin Thermal Power Station had to spend about five days when they went around Sri Lanka owing to vagaries of wind. According to him, the average time saved per voyage would be 25 hours and the average saving in distance would be 300 nautical miles, thanks to the SSCP. The project impact on environment had been continuously monitored, he said.

Ashok R. Thakkar, chamber president, said the project assumed significance, as the country could not achieve economic progress without enhancing infrastructure.

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