Context:
Recently, the Supreme Court gave the Centre four weeks’ time to file a response clarifying its stand on a plea seeking national heritage status for the ‘Ram Setu’.
Relevance:
GS III: Infrastructure
Dimensions of the Article:
- About Ram Setu
- Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project (SSCP)
About Ram Setu
- Ram Sethu is also known as Adam’s Bridge or Nala Sethu.
- It is a 48 km chain of limestone shoals between Pamban Island known as Rameswaram Island on the coast of Tamil Nadu, India, and Mannar Island on the coast of Sri Lanka.
- The bridge separates the Gulf of Mannar (south-west) from the Palk Strait (northeast).
- The bridge holds religious significance. A bridge is mentioned in Ramayana, that Lord Ram and his army built to reach Lanka. The location of the Lanka of the Ramayana has been widely interpreted as being current day Sri Lanka and bridge as Ram Sethu.
Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project (SSCP)
- Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project (SSCP) can be traced back to the British, who Proposed as channel to link the Palk Strait with the Gulf of Mannar.
- It was only in 2005 that the project was inaugurated.
- Separating the shallow sea consisting of the Gulf of Mannar in the south and Palk Bay in the north is a somewhat linear coral ridge called Adam’s Bridge or Ram Setu.
- This runs between Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu and Thalaimannar in Sri Lanka.
- The SSCP, if completed, is expected to considerably reduce the navigation time between the east and west coasts of India.
-Source: The Hindu
