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The Indian cabinet of ministers is scheduled to approve the massive Sethusamuduram Canal Project (SSCP) this month. This 260Km long canal in the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Strait will have a depth of about 12 metres and it is proposed to dredge a width of 300 metres along its 44 nautical mile stretch and it is estimated that 84. 5 million cubic meters of sand will be dredged.

This could have not only drastic impacts on the surrounding environment but on Indo- Sri Lanka relations as well. As a report of an Indian environmental group Manitham has said (see report on this page) the Indian Government has not had the courtesy to inform Sri Lanka but more important is that we Sri Lankans have been Lotus-eaters. Although for the past one and a half decades we have been running to New Delhi on the slightest pretext, our motto being: friendship with India’, we had not taken this issue up.

Time and again some concerned Sri Lankans have been voicing concern about the adverse environmental effects, such as the veteran engineer A.G.T.A Wickremasuriya in articles to The Island , if such a project goes through. But in this age, communal politics takes precedence over all other matters.On July 16, this year we warned about this proposed project under the caption India’s proposed Suez Canal’ and called upon the government to act immediately but the wheels of Indo-Sri Lanka friendship appear to grind very slowly.

Now this project which has been mooted 144 years ago by a British Marine Commander A.D. Taylor but was shelved by the British and even Independent Indian leaders, probably because of the tremendous costs involved, is about to be launched by cash strapped India. It is claimed that the canal will save 400 nautical miles and up to 36 hours for ships to pass from India’s west to east coasts instead of sailing around Sri Lanka.

The canal it is claimed will be confined to the territorial waters of India and that is perhaps why New Delhi-although the project has been on the back burner for years-did not consider it necessary to consult Sri Lanka on it. This canal has been the dream of South Indian polticians, particuarly those of Tamil Nadu and now the Jeyalalithas and Karunannidhis are all at each others throats to claim as to who initiated the project.

But there is the fallout of such massive interference with nature that has remained undisturbed over the ages. The report says: Jaffna peninsula and Rameswaram in India are linked via Miocene era limestone reefs. And if for the purpose of the SSCP, is dredged, there is a notion that half of the Jaffna peninsula and nearly 85 islands on the western and eastern coasts of Sri Lanka and half if Rameswaram will go under water’

This is a warning that no Sri Lankan apart from Lotus eating national leaders can ignore.

Despite the knowledge that such a project was on the back burner, we have slept through. It is time to wake up and call upon India to halt the project until studies are done on its impact would be on Sri Lanka.

On September 27, The Island published an article on this editorial page by Malith Mendis, Chief Executive/Director of Lanka Hydraulic Institute Ltd. He contended that the exact effects of the proposed canal are difficult to establish because of inadequate Oceanographic data such as wave, wind data on the Adam’s Bridge and Palk Strait. It is more likely that that this canal will not be a ‘Zero Environmental Project’ as the net water exchange between the north and south of Adam’s Bridge will likely be affected, he said.

While opposing the canal project at this juncture due to inadequate impact assessment on Sri Lanka, his institution is of the view that the navigational channel in the Palk Strait should be viewed with a fixed link bridge between the two countries and any developments in the region sould not only have minimum environmental impacts but also should be of advantage to both countries, Mr. Mendis has said.

There are also the economic, and security considerations that Sri Lanka has to be concerned with. The Sethusamuduram project, as future reports published in this paper will show involves a chain of ports in South India all of which will drastically affect the traffic coming into Sri Lankan and Trincomalee harbours. Gone will be the pipe dream of some of our economic planners and shipping visionaries about Sri Lanka developing into a’ hub port’ for South and South East Asia. This will also affect the strategic position of this island with regard to defence.

There was a time as one British Prime Minister Pitt said: he who controls Trincomalee controls the Indian Ocean. Such strategic values may no longer be there.We will have to re think our commercial and defence potential.

The mood of our political leaders right now is such that they are scared to say boo, to an Indian goose. But on this issue we have to stand up and call upon India to halt this project till adequate research is done the impact on the environment of the SSCP. With friendship and trade being the key notes of Indo Sri lanka friendship in recent times, other fallouts of this project, we hope could be resolved in accordance with the spirit of the times.