Reviving a white elephant

Given the series of scams in recent years, I was amazed to see media reports on February 26, 2013, that the Indian government has overruled the recommendations of the six-member expert committee, headed by
Dr R.K. Pachauri and set up in 2008, and has decided to go ahead with the ill-advised Sethusamudram Shipping Channel Project (SSCP). About `800 crore have been spent on it already.

Concerns about the SSCP are primarily economic, though environmental issues, the genuine threat of tsunamis and the impact on the livelihood of the fishermen who operate over 10,000 boats cannot be overlooked. Similarly, religious issues should also not be glossed over, given the forthcoming 2014 general elections. However, I intend to examine the SSCP purely from an economic viability point of view.
The proposed SSCP will be 167-km-long, 300-metre wide, and with a depth of 12 metres (to permit two-way transit by ships below an estimated 30,000 Dead Weight Tonnes, DWT, with draughts below 10 metres). It has three legs — southern, central and northern. Dredging is to be carried out only in the southern and northern legs, which involves dumping 70 million cubic metres of dredged mud in dumping sites located in depths greater than 25 metres. The distances to these dumpsites are approximately 60 km in Palk Strait area and 35 km in the “Ram Setu” (or Adam’s bridge) area. Unfortunately, unlike the Suez and Panama Canals, which are inland canals, the SSCP would be located in a known “high siltation area”, and, given the strong sea currents, would fill up with mud within a span of a few months or, maximum, a year. Hence, regular surveys followed by very expensive “maintenance dredging” would need to be carried out, thus making this project a white elephant, even if a few ships did use this transit “short cut”.
Even if the SSCP is finally made operational, as originally envisaged, I seriously doubt if any of the projected 3,055 ships (of which 60 per cent ply international routes) will use the channel. The SSCP is not economically viable for many reasons. For one, it is designed to take ships below 30,000 DWT, while international shipping is heading for larger ships, above 60,000 DWT. The Suez Canal already caters to ships over 100,000 tons, and the Panama Canal is being deepened and widened to cater to ships of 60,000 tons by 2015. If we deepen the SSCP to accept larger ships, its width must correspondingly increase (possibly double) from the present 300 metre, adding to the costs.
In the SSCP, a ship would have to pay toll tax according to weight, embark and disembark a pilot (it is mandatory for all merchant ships, when entering a port or a channel or a canal to embark a “pilot” i.e. a specialist navigator with good local knowledge for safe navigation in those restricted waters and this adds to the “toll charges” of the canal etc), while proceeding at very slow speeds in the channel to avoid grounding damage due to “squatting effect”. Ships sink a few feet if they increase speed in shallow waters. This can lead to damage of the ship’s underbelly, in case it strikes the sea bottom.
The `2,400 crore SSCP (at 2008 prices) may not earn enough profits to pay back its original capital cost. It must also be noted that the SSCP, that reduces the distance by a mere 340 to 434 nautical miles transit, cannot be compared to “true inland canals”, like the Suez and Panama Canals, which save thousands of nautical miles transit, and are not exposed to the vagaries of ocean currents, rough weather or sea-borne attacks by pirates or foreign terrorists.
Rapidly growing Indian coastal shipping is reducing its ship size from 4,000 DWT to 1,900 DWT for economic reasons, and thus will contribute little by way of toll tax to the SSCP since less toll will be paid for smaller ships. Simple calculations show that international ships from the Cape of Good Hope, Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas will actually save time and money if they bypass the SSCP and go around Sri Lanka.

The Tamil Nadu coast is “cyclone prone” and as per the Indian Meteorological Department, between 1891 and 2001, 64 cyclones hit the Tamil Nadu coast, with 23 “visiting” the SSCP site. Also, since the SSCP is basically an open sea channel, ships using its shallow, restricted waters at slow speeds of about six knots (so as to avoid “shallow water squatting effect”), would face problems of safe navigation, as the effect of strong winds, currents and rough weather have a far greater impact on ships moving at slow speeds. Apart from the cost of regular dredging, additional costs would need to be considered for positioning radar reflecting sea buoys to mark the channel, setting up coastal radar monitoring and communication stations so as to provide navigational information and assistance to shipping, especially in low visibility and bad weather conditions.
It’s not too late for the Indian government to cut its losses and give up this ill-advised project and save thousands of crores of rupees, which could be better utilised in upgrading the Tuticorin Port and turn it into an international container port (it will then compete directly with the Colombo port), and also upgrading the small Tuticorin airport (located about 25 kilometres from the sea port) for handling cargo and passengers.

The author retired as Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam