Context: Sethusamudram Corporation Ltd (SCL) is set to be wound up, bringing to end an ambitious maritime project that turned controversial over religious sentiments.

Key Points

• The project was conceived in 1860 by Alfred Dundas Taylor
• In 2005, the Government of India approved Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project
• It is a proposed project to create a shipping route in the shallow straits between India and Sri Lanka across the Palk Bay cutting across Rama Setu.
• The project involves digging a 44.9-nautical-mile long deep-water channel linking the shallow Palk Strait with the Gulf of Mannar.
• The channel would be dredged in the Sethusamudram sea passing through the limestone shoals of Ram Sethu.

Rama Setu (Adam’s Bridge)

• Rama Setu is also known as Adam’s Bridge.
• The 50 km long bridge separates the Gulf of Mannar (south-west) from the Palk Strait (northeast).
• It is a chain of limestone shoals, between Pamban Island (a.k.a. Rameswaram Island) off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, India, and Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.
• The bridge starts as a chain of shoals from the Dhanushkodi tip of India’s Pamban Island and ends at Sri Lanka’s Mannar Island.