The announcement by Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe, recently, about a proposal to establish land connectivity with India has come none too soon. Twenty years ago, in Chennai, Mr. Wickremesinghe, then Prime Minister, while delivering a lecture, floated the idea of building a bridge linking Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu with Talaimanar in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. This was part of his larger vision of regional economic integration, encompassing his country and the southern States of India and aimed at generating more opportunities for economic growth.
He has been discussing the concept of economic integration on many an occasion and at several international fora. But, whenever groups and parties claiming to represent the interests of Sinhalese-Buddhists expressed their opposition to the proposal on the ground that this would not benefit Sri Lanka, the talk of having expanded physical connectivity would die down. In December 2015, when India’s Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari informed the Lok Sabha that the Asian Development Bank was willing to fund the bridge project of ₹24,000 crore, Sri Lanka’s response was muted followed by sharp criticism from the project opponents.
However, to the credit of Mr. Wickremesinghe and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the idea of land connectivity was not abandoned. It found a mention in a joint statement issued in July after the two leaders met in New Delhi. The document even stated that “a feasibility study for such connectivity will be conducted at an early date.” As a follow up, Mr. Wickremesinghe, who is also Finance Minister, in his Budget address on November 13, referred to the project of land connectivity and and said “we expect to utilise Colombo port to meet the supply needs of south west India and Trincomalee port to meet the supply needs of south east India”.
