Palk Bay of sethu project ready to handle vessels

Chennai: The Palk Bay of the Ship Channel project is ready to handle vessels of 10 m draft with dredging of 10.73 m achieved in this location.

In other words, vessels up to 30,000 dwt (dead weight tonnes) can now navigate from Chennai up to the coast of Rameswaram, says a Chennai Port Trust press release.

DCI engaged a survey launch (Taurus) of Geo Star Surveys India to conduct a sea-bed survey from April 4 to ascertain the depth of the channel in this 54 km stretch, where at present six trailing suction hopper dredgers are at work.

The initial report shows that as against the planned channel depth of 12 m and 300 m width, the depth varies from 10 to 11 m with an average of 10.73 m. This is for the initial 18 km stretch. For the remaining 36 km of Palk Bay portion the depth varies from 10.75 m to -11.3 m, the release says.

The Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project envisages dredging of a ship channel across the Palk straits between India and Sri Lanka. The project will allow ships sailing between the east and west costs of India to have a straight passage through India’s territorial waters instead of having to circumvent Sri Lanka. This will lead to a saving of up to 424 nautical miles (780 km) and up to to 30 hours in sailing time.

Two channels will be created — one across north of Adam’s Bridge (the chain of islets and shallows linking India with Sri Lanka) south-ast of Pamban Island and another through the shallows of Palk Bay, deepening the Palk straits. The total length of these two channels would be 89 km.