Sethu Samudram project: Is it needed?

I have been hearing and reading about this project for quite some time and the advantages as claimed by the authorities is that it cuts down the distance (420 odd nautical miles) and time taken (approx. 30 hours) by ships than navigating around SriLanka, indirectly also saving fuel expenses.

To make that happen, the sea bed is being deepened (dredged) for the ships to pass through and hence the whoopla is all about. This project is estimated to cost Rs. 2427 Crore. Let's break that up and see - One crore converts to 100 lakhs or 10 million i.e. 1 followed 7 zeros, written as 1,00,00,000. Multiply this number by 2427 and my goodness – that’s the amount estimated. So we have 2, followed by 10 digits!!!

Some basic apprehensions ...

Do any of our politicians / bureaucrats / authorities know this mathematics? I sincerely doubt. God only knows how much is going to be really needed for this project and how many people are going to be more richer.

How were they able to estimate this much big money when we don’t have previous experience of performing such an exercise? For example, If ISRO gives an estimate for satellite launch; we can deduce that they have experience in launching satellites earlier and that helped in arriving at the estimate.

What do they do with the soil and other particles that are being dredged? I see that it is just thrown through a huge pipe, but where do they go?

Will this not have an adverse effect on the surface of earth and trigger land slides or under sea quakes because of the force applied?

How much impact the dredging have over the innumerable fishes and other creatures living in that area?

Finally, do we need this project when we still haven’t built the basic infrastructure of providing facilities such as adequate drinking water, drainage, electricity, better roads, PDS, communication systems in the event of calamity, etc. to our own country men.