Baalu rules out alternate alignment of Sethu project

CHENNAI: Ruling out the possibility of implementing the Sethusamudram canal project in any other alignment, Union Shipping Minister T R Baalu said on Saturday that the Centre would move the Supreme Court, seeking permission to carry out the project in the present route.
    
Asked about DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's remark that he was not averse to an alternate alignment, the minister said his leader had made that remark 'out of anguish' when he was repeatedly asked whether he was bent upon 'destroying' the Ram Sethu.
    
"I do not see any such thing as Ram Sethu and I know only Adam's bridge (as Ram Sethu is popularly called)," Baalu said.
    
Taking a dig at the BJP for opposing the demolition of the Sethu, he said the alternate alignment being proposed by that party had already been rejected by the Union Environment Ministry during the NDA regime in 1999.
    
Though the entire project and the present alignment were approved by the BJP-led regime then, the party leaders were now trying to whip up religious passions to gain political mileage, he alleged.