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Dredging at Ariankuppam river mouth starts

— Photo:T. Singaravelou

To help fishermen: The dredger berthed at the old port in Puducherry.

PUDUCHERRY: The Kerala State Maritime Development Corporation (KSMDC), which has been entrusted with the task of dredging the Ariankuppam river mouth, commenced de-silting of one lakh cubic meter of sand on Wednesday.

The desilting work, to be carried out in an area of 40 to 80 meters, would be completed by March 15 next, Managing Director of KSMDC K.K. Rajendran told reporters shortly after Minister for Health and Port E. Valsaraj flagged off TSD SINDHURAJ, the shallow dredger.

The dredger has a hopper capacity to remove around 200 cubic meters of sand at a time. The dredged sand would be dumped into the sea within a range of three kilometres from the river mouth.

The dredger can take up to five trips a day to the sea , Mr. Rajendran said. It was a longstanding demand of the fishermen to de-silt the area as they were not able to operate their boats from the harbour owing to excessive accumulation of sand. The de-silting work stopped in February 2005 as the dredger with the Port Department was not equipped to carry the excessive silt. A large number of fishermen, who had gathered at the harbour to witness the flagging off, said that they would eagerly await the completion of the work. Owing to excessive accumulation of silt at the river mouth, the fishing crafts were taken out only at the time of high tide, they said. However, they expressed concern over the lack of response to fishermen’s demand to have dredging on a continuous basis.

The Central Water Power and Research Station at Pune had suggested removing four lakh cubic meter of sand every year from the river mouth for smooth navigation, even for fishing vessels.

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