In a letter dated 28 October, 2007, addressed to the Secretary, The Committee of Eminent Persons on Sethusamudram Shipping Channel Project (SSCP), Chennai, Dr. Subramanian Swamy has raised the following objections and suggestions to, and for the implementation of the Sethusamudram Channel Project (SSCP).
In this context, perhaps taking note of the fact that the Committee of Eminences is politically loaded with T R Balu’s men and known Communists of CPI (M) vintage, Dr Swamy has put it on record: “I reserve the right to question the objectivity as also raise the matter of heavy bias and prejudice against the historicity of Sri Rama afflicting this Committee later before the Supreme Court”. The whole country knows that this Committee was disowned by the Supreme Court of India in open Court a few days ago.
This Committee has no judicial sanction. It only has T.R. Balu’s political sanction. But for the fact that Dr. Subramanian Swamy can match the impeccable academic credentials and Parliamentary Record of T.R.Balu on a fairly even basis, if not more, the man-in-the-street in India is laughing with suppressed glee that the Committee of Eminent Persons would have dismissed this letter of Dr Subramanian Swamy without much ado even at the admission stage itself.
Through formidable legal points and proven hard facts, Dr Subramanian Swamy has produced a great tragedy for the Men behind the SSCP — the slaying of their beautiful hypothesis by ugly and brutal facts. I am summarizing below the main points and objections raised by him:
A. Prof S Ramachandran, the Chairman of the Committee, spoke to the media in a written statement, on 11 June, 2007, to this effect: “There is no doubt that this chain of islands (i.e., Rama Setu) formed due to natural process”. Dr Swamy has termed as false. He has said that this creates an apprehension of bias and pre-judgment by the leader of this Committee on the issue whether or not a ship channel in the Palk Straits can safely and without causing public disorder, be dredged by cutting through the Rama Setu.
The report prepared by the former Director of the Geological Survey of India, Dr S Badrinarayanan, is available with the Government and should be accessed by the Committee, to correct this erroneous view of the Chairman, which view has profound consequences.
The President of India, on a reference to the Earth Sciences Department had received an opinion, submitted in March 2007, holding that the SETU is constructed and “not formed due to natural process” as the Chairman has held publicly. Dr. Swamy has made it known to the Committee that the Media had made this disclosure on the basis of these reports as far back as 8 May, 2007.
B. It is false as stated by the Minister of Culture, Ms Ambika Soni in answer to a question in Rajya Sabha, that there is no “scientific evidence” to establish that the Rama Setu qualifies to be an ancient monument and that it lacks the essential ingredients required under law to be considered for inclusion in the list of ancient monuments.
Dr Swamy has furnished detailed evidence to show that it is adequate for the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) to start an investigation in collaboration with the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) to decide this question.
C. It is false as stated by the Minister of Shipping and Transport Mr T R Baalu that the SSCP is environmentally sustainable, and cleared by the NEERI and other scientific establishments. The NEERI had conveyed in writing in a letter dated 8 April, 1999 to the Government that prima facie the Institute was not in favour of the SSCP project at all.
The NEERI also specifically rejected the Alignment No.5, circling Dhanushkodi because then the coral reef rocks beyond east of Dhanushkodi would have to be blasted by explosives, which would completely de-stablilize the marine environment and life.
D. On 17 June, 2002, the NEERI did revise its opinion, in order to support the presently chosen Alignment No.6, but on the condition that explosives will not be used for cutting through the Rama Setu. However, the Minister of Shipping, Mr Baalu has made a public statement that the Government (having failed repeatedly to cut through Rama Setu with dredger machines) proposed to use explosives to create a breach in Rama Setu.
This is in violation of NEERI’s considered opinion. In this context, it should be borne in mind that as Chief Minister, Ms. Jayalalitha had publicly disclosed on 2 September, 2005, that an Expert Committee headed by the former Director of the NIOT, Mr M Ravindran in a Report submitted on 30 May, 2005 to the Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board, had recommended more studies, tests and research as the NEERI 2002 study was shoddy, made without consulting the Geological Survey of India (GSI), and therefore professionally inadequate.
Mr Ravindran had given this finding long before the SSCP was inaugurated in Madurai on 2nd July, 2005. Moreover, the NEERI failed to take into account as brought out by Shipping companies (Business Line, October 2007) that fishing activities in deep sea cannot be carried out after the SSCP becomes operational. THAT IS, FISHING AND SSCP ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE ACTIVITIES. THIS WILL CAUSE MONUMENTAL DISTRESS TO THE POOR SECTIONS OF TAMIL SOCIETY.
E. It is false to state that the SSCP is economically profitable. The rate of return calculation, the estimated time saved by ships in using the Sethusamudram Ship Channel, and the interest rate to be paid for loans to finance the project, are grossly wrong because these are based on contrived or bogus data.
The studies of Captain H Balakrishnan, and infrastructure consultant Dr Jacob John may be referred to for more accurate calculation. Dr Swamy has placed the results of their studies before the Committee. On the best and most favourable assumptions, the rate of return on the SSCP cannot exceed 2.75 per cent, at which rate no public sector project can be sanctioned.
It is then better to put the project funds in a fixed deposit and provide subsidies to ships to encourage them to dock at Thoothukudi port. Further, no ship of tonnage more than 30,000 DWT will be able to use the Channel, thus excluding the majority of ships plying on the Indian Ocean from the alleged benefits of the SSCP.
Thus Dr Swamy has argued that the Corrupt Party Politics of SSCP has vetoed (with Sovereign Sonia’s help and collusion) the inviolable Economics of SSCP based on cost benefit analysis and considerations of national growth, national survival and national security.
F. Finally, what has shocked the public of India (definitely not Sonia or Karunanidhi or Dr Manmohan Singh) is this allegation of Dr Swamy that the Minister of Shipping Mr Baalu, through his relatives and benamis, has commercial interests in the shipping industry through a Company which charters ships of less than 30,000 DWT.
According to Dr Swamy this raises a serious question of conflict of public and private interest on the part of the Minister. In the light of the above analysis, Dr Swamy has made the following suggestions to the Committee:
1. If the Committee would want to be objective and just, then it ought to recommend to the Government to set up a Multi-Disciplinary Agency (MDA) to re-calculate the economic returns, maintenance costs, environmental implications and social benefits of the Sethusamudram Shipping Channel Project.
This MDA consisting of experts from GSI, NIOT, and overseas Indian origin consultants, should explicitly recognize that issues of public order and national security will matter in making its final recommendation.
2. The Committee in view of the irrefutable objections given above, has to rule out Alignment No.6 as impossible to implement, in view of the Rama Setu being an inalienable legacy of the nation that cannot be in the slightest desecrated and that too merely to satisfy perverse desires of a few atheistic persons in office or those ignorant or unaware of how deeply the nation worships Sri Rama.
The nation-wide public order will be jeopardized if the Rama Setu is damaged in any way. Moreover, if the ASI finds that Rama Setu is indeed qualified to be an ancient monument, the SSCP cannot touch it under law. Hence Alignment No.6 must be abandoned forthwith as impossible to implement in Indian democracy.
I have however no objection to Alignment No.1 being chosen (In his enclosed Annexure 7).
3. The Committee ought to recommend to the Ministry of Culture that it may immediately declare and notify the Rama Setu as an “Ancient Monument ” within the meaning of the law laid out in the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (1958).
The Committee should also recommend to the Government to approach the UNESCO to declare the RAMA SETU as a ‘World Heritage Site’, and take necessary steps to provide the essential infrastructure to render Rama Setu as a ‘Tirthstan’ and ‘Divya Kshetra’.
Government in India, thanks to the perverted functioning of our Party Democracy, has degenerated into Government by political Orgy, almost by petty party orgasm. SSCP definitely constitutes a high water mark in the rising crescendo of corruption in our public life—indescribably vicious and brazen.
Public Policies are determined and Laws are made by small criminal minorities playing upon the fears and fancies, impulses and imbecilities of the mob—very rarely minorities of intelligent and honest men, but usually minorities of chosen known rogues.
Under these disastrous conditions, the Government is mainly an expensive organization to regulate evildoers and tax those who behave; Government does little for fairly respectable people except annoy them in thought, word and deed all the time.
