Other States - Puducherry   

Tie-up with Kerala maritime body to dredge river mouth

dredging pact: K. K. Rajendran, Managing Director of the Kerala State Maritime Development Corporation (left) and M. Rajendiran, Executive Engineer, Puducherry Port Department, exchanging documents to dredge the mouth of the Ariankuppam river in the presence of E. Valasaraj, Puducherry Minister for Health and Port, in Puducherry on Wednesday.

PUDUCHERRY: The Port Department of the Government of Puducherry on Wednesday entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kerala State Maritime Development Corporation (KSMDC) to dredge the mouth of the Ariankuppam river to facilitate free movement of vessels to the fishing harbour.

As per the MoU, KSMDC, which operates the Dredging Corporation of India’s dredger TSD SINDHURAJ, will de-silt one lakh cubic metres of sand deposited in the river mouth by the end of March next year. The shallow dredger has a hopper capacity to remove approximately 200 cubic metres of sand at a time. It can take a minimum of five trips to the sea to dump the dredged sand everyday.

The MoU was signed by K.K Rajendran, Managing Director of the KSMDC, and M. Rajendiran, Executive Engineer, Port Department, Government of Puducherry, in the presence of Health Minister E. Valsaraj, who also holds the portfolio of Port Department.

Mr. Valsaraj said the government decided to hand over the job to an outside agency as the dredger with the Port Department was not equipped to remove the silt near the river mouth. It was a longstanding demand of fishermen to de-silt the area as they were not able to operate their boats from the Harbour due to excessive accumulation of sand, he added.

The government would incur an expenditure of Rs 2.87 crore to de-silt the harbour. The amount would be paid in two instalments, he added.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Woman dies in accident
Holiday for schools on Friday
Leaders greet people
New schemes from BSNL for Deepavali
Jail warders promoted in Puducherry
Communist leader comes alive on screen
Tie-up with Kerala maritime body to dredge river mouth
Work for new port at Karaikal in full swing

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu