In 2007, the Parliament and political circles in New Delhi and Chennai were abuzz with heated discussions on the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project. The objective of the project was to create a shipping route through the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay, an area marked by a chain of shoals between India and Sri Lanka.
These shoals are commonly referred to as Adam’s Bridge or Ram Setu. Although the idea of creating a shipping route around the Indian peninsula in this narrow strait had been mooted more than a century earlier, the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project was strongly promoted by T.R. Baalu, the Union Shipping Minister from 2004 to 2009, during the first term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
