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RK Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and head of the panel given the charge of finding an alternative site for the Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project (SSCP), visited Rameswaram on Thursday along with his team of experts.

They inspected Dhanuskodi and some other areas and then left for Madurai. After being welcomed by Collector Arun Roy, they went to the Coast Guard station, Mandapam and interacted with officials there.

But, experts claim that the Rs ,000 crore project, which envisaged the creation of a navigation canal between the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay, will be shelved, since dredging has been suspended for some time now.

It is suspected that some dredged areas have been covered with sand again due to water currents. The project will cost more if at all it is revived, they added.

Despite a coastline running to 7,517 kms, mottled with 12 major and 200 ports, India does not have a continuous navigable route around the peninsula. This, in spite of shallow waters near Rameswaram between the south coast and Thalaimannar of Sri Lanka.

Ships have to sail around Lanka— an additional distance of 424 nautical miles— and spend up to 32 more hours to reach Thoothukudi and other western parts of India.

The SSCP committee was set up in December 1955 under the chairmanship of A Ramasamy Mudaliar. Then, there was a demand for developing a major harbour at Thoothukudi. The panel, therefore, declared a year later that the SSCP and Tuticorin harbour were closely related and dubbed it a twin project.

But, while the Thoothukudi harbour has been declared open, the SSCP has been battling controversies. Launched on July 2, 2005, it involves dredging a 167-km long channel in the Palk Bay. But to do so, it will have to cut through Adam’s Bridge or Sethu, which as per Hindu mythology, was constructed by Lord Rama.

The project hit a roadblock after some Hindu organisations agitated against the dredging of the Adam’s Bridge. The issue reached the Supreme Court, which directed the Centre to find a quick solution to the issue. Then, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh formed a panel, led by Pachauri to study a viable alternative alignment of the channel. Although rumours have been doing the rounds that it will be implemented after breaking a part of land near Dhanushkodi to connect Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar, and that the canal will be formed near the Kothandaramar temple, there is no official word on its current status.