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Expedite Sethu project, says AIYF

PUDUCHERRY: A nine-member team of the All India Youth Federation (AIYF) which has undertaken an inter-district campaign on the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project, from Chennai to Rameswaram urged the State and Central governments on Sunday to expedite the implementation of the project.

P. Kandasamy and D. Lenin, president and secretary of the Tamil Nadu AIYF unit respectively, told reporters here that the team would visit 16 districts, including Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Pudukottai, Madurai, Sivaganga, Tuticorin and Tirunelveli, explaining the importance of the project for the country’s economic development.

The campaign was also aimed at exposing the Sangh Parivar’s attempts to stall the project by raising communal and religious issues, though 70 per cent of the work had been completed during the last two years, Mr. Kandasamy said. The project was cleared during the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, he said. The dredging operation had been going on along the same alignment approved during the NDA rule, Mr. Lenin said.

During the 1,200-km-campaign journey, over 1,000 villages, including coastal hamlets would be covered, he said.

Allaying the apprehensions of fishermen about the impact of the project was part of the AIYF’s mission, particularly against the backdrop of some non-governmental organisations spreading the theory that the project would be detrimental to maintenance of ecological balance in the Gulf of Mannar.

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