India ready for work once Sri Lanka green-lights project

Colombo, June 20 (Daily Mirror) - India remains ready to initiate steps regarding the land connectivity project between the two countries once Sri Lanka gives the go-ahead, according to a top source familiar with the subject.

As part of connectivity between the two countries, a 30-kilometre bridge has been proposed to link Sri Lanka and India by road. It has triggered a debate in the country. An informed source said that the proposal originally came from the Sri Lankan side in the past, and India had begun to see the merits of it.

According to the source, India is ready to consider the project implementation if Sri Lanka green-lights it.

Recently, Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha also referred to the need to build a land link between Sri Lanka and India. He even said the time for wavering is over.

At that time, he said the distance between Colombo and Chennai by sea is roughly 300 kilometres, but the distance between Rameswaram and Talaimannar, the closest points of our two countries, is about 30 kilometres.

“Yet, there is no direct road. No railway. No ferry service that runs at scale. No energy grid connection. No pipeline. It is, frankly, an anomaly. It is as if two neighbouring rooms are connected only through a corridor outside, even when there is a door that can be built between them, right in the shared wall,” he said.

He said, “Land connectivity via a bridge or tunnel across the Palk Strait has been discussed for decades. There are enough examples of such corridors across the world. The engineering is well understood. The economics are compelling. The benefits, wherever such bridges have been built, are unmistakable. But we continue to waver. But let me say clearly: the time for wavering is over. A fixed link between India and Sri Lanka would transform the economic geography of this entire region. It would make Sri Lanka a hub, it aspires to become, in a way that no port expansion or airport upgrade can achieve on its own.”