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Port project will be studied carefully: Mehra

Staff Reporter

CD on "Pondicherry: Past and Present" released

PUDUCHERRY: The Government will examine the port project carefully and take care that the beach is not endangered and the topology is not altered, Chief Secretary Pradeep Mehra has said. Speaking at the release of a CD-ROM titled "Pondicherry: Past and Present", Mr. Mehra said the size of ships that visited Puducherry port during French rule was different from that of the ships coming in now; the goods had changed too, as well as the topology.

French Consul General Joelle Rayet released the bilingual French- English CD, compiled by Jean Deloche, historian and member of the French Institute and the French School of Asian Studies.

French Institute Director Jean Pierre Muller said the institute had 1,36,000 black and white photographs and 5,500 colour films and slides dating from the 1950s. The photos were of South Indian religious art, iconography, architecture, pre-historic art, palaces, jewellery and heritage of Puducherry. "One of our objectives in protecting and digitising them is to make them available on the Net. We have been bringing out CDs and books to highlight our collection of photos, and this CD is one such effort."

Mr. Deloche said the CD contained maps, texts, lithographs, watercolours and photos. There were over 300 plans of the town just for the 18th century.

"I don't think that any other city has such detailed cartography. The town developed on the basis of a Dutch plan and not French as is generally believed.

The gridiron pattern was developed by a Dutch engineer and the French later forced the town people to settle along straight lines, based on the old plan," he said.

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