more-in The Dredging Corporation of India Limited has claimed that since dredging work commenced in mid-January it has removed 60,000 cubic metres of sand from the river mouth connecting the Thengaithittu fishing harbour and old port. Chairman and Managing Director of DCIL Rajesh Tripathi, in a statement, said the work would be completed in May and part of the channel would be made navigable soon. The statement was issued after Mr. Tripathi visited the spot and held discussions with the Chief Minister and port officials. The statement said the DCIL had been assigned to dredge a channel of approximately 600 m long, 100 m wide, and 5 m deep. The instruction by the Port Department was to concentrate on 25 m of the northern side of the channel. Of the length of the channel to be dredged, around 400 m had been cleared and the remaining would be cleared in the next seven days. Mr. Tripathi said as per a study conducted by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai, the siltation at the river mouth was about 60 to 70%. The channel gets silted very fast even as dredging is on. “All the gutters get drained into the river mouth only and the channel gets infested with heavy amount of debris. The suction mouth of the dredger gets chocked regularly. If the dredging is done for one hour, cleaning the suction mouth takes another one hour,” he said.

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