Sethu project will be revived’
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VINODHINI
New Delhi
May 28: Newly sworn-in Cabinet minister M.K. Azhagiri on Thursday has promised to revive the controversial Sethu Samudram which was inaugurated in Madurai by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi during the previous UPA regime when T.R. Baalu was the Union shipping minister.
Visibly relaxed after the swearing in ceremony at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, the elder son of the chief minister who won from Madurai parliamentary constituency by more than one lakh votes told this newspaper that the DMK manifesto had promised the people that the "prestigious" project would be revived despite opposition by some people on religious grounds.
"I will personally meet the Prime Minister in this regard. We will fulfill the promise we have given to the people," he said at Tamil Nadu Bhavan after the ceremony at Rashtrapathi Bhavan.
Sources said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had welcomed Mr Azhagiri into the Cabinet and asked him to perform well after the ceremony.
The project inaugurated in July 2005 involves dredging along the Palk Strait to form a shipping channel enable ships to pass along the canal instead of taking a circuitous route around Sri Lanka.
The project ran into controversy after activists protested over the environmental damage and Hindu religious groups claimed it would damage the "Ram Sethu" bridge believed to be built by Lord Rama to cross over to Lanka in order to rescue his wife. Reacting guardedly to being made a minister, he said, "All ministers from Tamil Nadu will work towards the growth of the country and our state."
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