Home FEATURED NEWS A ferry from Tamil Nadu to Jaffna, as soon as once more

A ferry from Tamil Nadu to Jaffna, as soon as once more

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Express View: There are early considerations that the one-way ticket is priced a little bit too steep, and reserving services will not be obtainable on widespread vacationer portals. The authorities should handle these worries and take away the glitches.

india-sri lanka transport, india-sri lanka ferry, india-sri lanka ferry service, india-sri lanka ferry inaugurated, ranil wickremesinghe, indian expressThe Narendra Modi authorities has situated India-Sri Lanka ties inside its Neighbourhood First coverage.

Last Saturday, 50 people boarded a ferry, Cheriyapani, from Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu to cross the Palk Strait and journey to Kankesanthurai in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. The maritime service, begun within the early 1900s, was discontinued within the Nineteen Eighties within the wake of ethnic strife in Sri Lanka. Reactivating the ocean route had been on the agenda of governments of each international locations for greater than 12 years. India and Sri Lanka signed an MoU for sea connectivity in 2011 and a ferry service between Tuticorin and Colombo started that 12 months. It was discontinued in lower than six months, due to logistical causes. Cheriyapani will take about 3.5 hours to journey 110 km. The sea-route rejuvenation will give a much-needed fillip to commerce between India and Sri Lanka, and encourage people-to-people contact between the 2 neighbours.

The Narendra Modi authorities has situated India-Sri Lanka ties inside its Neighbourhood First coverage. In July, throughout Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s go to to India, the 2 governments got here out with a imaginative and prescient doc that emphasised maritime connectivity, together with the event of ports at Colombo, Kankesanthurai and Trincomalee and the revival of sea routes. Besides enhancing enterprise ties between the Indian Ocean neighbours, Cheriyapani is prone to convey pilgrims to spiritual centres in southern Sri Lanka and temple cities in south India.

In latest a long time, Beijing has loomed massive over Delhi-Colombo ties. China is Sri Lanka’s greatest bilateral creditor and has roped within the island nation in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Besides a $4-billion help bundle, Delhi has sought to counter Beijing’s affect by underlining the civilisational points of its ties with Colombo, that concerned the motion of individuals and concepts over centuries. It is important, due to this fact, that the ferry service was launched a day earlier than President Wickremesinghe left for China for a BRI meet. However, there are early considerations that at greater than Rs 7,600, the one-way ticket is priced a little bit too steep, and reserving services will not be obtainable on widespread vacationer portals. The authorities should handle these worries and take away the glitches. It should additionally expedite resumption of the Rameshwaram-Talaimannar ferry service, mooted throughout President Wickremesinghe’s go to.

© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd

First printed on: 18-10-2023 at 07:19 IST


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