When the Dredging Corporation of India sent its crane-fitted ship Hanuman to rescue the Sethusamudram canal project after a series of mishaps hit it, few would have missed the irony in the name.
The local people claimed the project was cursed because it involved dredging a chain of islets they believed to be the mythological bridge built by Ram%u2019s monkey army, led by Hanuman, to allow him to reach Lanka and rescue Sita.
The Rs 2,427-crore project, which looks to connect India%u2019s east and west coasts and save Rs 1,000 crore a year in shipping costs, had already had three false starts since work began late last year.
The first dredging vessel, Duck 6, sank and the second, Aquarius %u2014 the Dredging Corporation of India%u2019s (DCI%u2019s) largest %u2014 broke its spud. Thangan, the rescue ship, saw its crane collapse.
By then, the local belief about %u201CRamar setu%u201D was echoing far away in northern India with Sangh parivar activists and others filing petitions in the Supreme Court demanding protection for it.
Officials couldn%u2019t say if the choice of Hanuman as the rescue ship was deliberate %u2014 for religious or political reasons %u2014 but things began looking up after it was pressed into service.
But even Hanuman couldn%u2019t save what was cursed in the name of Ram. Late last month, the Supreme Court asked the DCI not to dredge through the chain of partly submerged limestone shoals, known as Adam%u2019s Bridge.
Work is now confined to a spot 4-5km north of the area while the Sethusamudram Corpor
