Consultation to Stop implementation of Sethu Samudiram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP) in any route announced by the BJP government, Repeal Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2011, Amend Env. Impact Assessment 2006 – Protect Livelihoods and Ecology, CAN’s draft Bill 2015 to protect traditional Coastal and Marine fishing people on 12th & 13th December 2014 at Chennai.
Coastal Action Network, a state wide forum involved in the protection of the livelihoods, homeland, ecology and fisheries of the fishing people and other coastal poor addressed a Press Conference at Chennai at the Press Club.
To highlight issues concerning
- Halting Sethu Samudram Canal Project
- Repealing CRZ 2011
- Amending EIA 2006 ( amended up to 2009) to Protect Livelihoods and Ecology
- Draft Bill 2015 as prepared by Coastal Action Network to protect traditional Coastal and Marine fishing .
- Coastal sand mining and stopping building sea walls and groynes as responsible for sea erosion
Halting the Sethu Samudram Shipping Canal Project as proposed again by BJP
The SSCP is a 270 km. long shiping lane, which is to pass through the Gulf of Mannar, the Palk Strait and the Palk Bay. The channel is 274 kms long. It involved earlier dredging in a 74 km. stretch for a width of 300 meters to a depth of 12 meters that it would achieve a 22.36 hour saving in shipping time. The Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project, a mega project costing now Rs. 25,000 crores which the Government of India is now proposing to spend to dredge the channel on the landward side. This amounts to gross falsification of the destructive impact of SSCP.
Main Themes discussed in the Consultation:
- Why to map, What to map and How to map and Impact of Mapping (CZMP and Maps)
- Understanding EIA and using Public consultation Process – the case of Thermal Power Plants
- Stop implementation of Sethu Samudiram Shipping Canal Project in any route announced by the BJP government.
- Understanding the GOI’s Traditional coastal and Marine fisherfolk (Protection of Rights) Act 2009
- “Protecting the Rights of Traditional, Coastal and Marine Fishing People’s Draft Bill 2015 by Coastal Action Network
- Halting Coastal Sand Mining and Desalination Plants
- Coastal Erosion: Halt Sea walls and Groynes
- Scrap CRZ 2011 and Uphold CRZ 1991 in its original form – Marking the CRZ Violations
