Soon Tamil Nadu and Kerala will be connected by a ferry service that will ply between the two state capitals.

The centre is keen to promote water ways in a big way in the country and this is only the beginning. For this, the centre has proposed the formation of Water Transport Corporation along with Tamil Nadu and has committed a sum of Rs 200 crore for the corporation.

Union minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Nitin Gadkari, said the propose corporation would run ferry services between Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala and Kanyakumari and Chennai in Tamil Nadu.

The union minister said that the centre will pump in Rs 200 crore as equity and also provide

Viability Gap Funding (VGF) to private player to participate in the ferry service project.

For sure, the central government was keen to promote water ways as effective means of transportation and this would be the beginning of similar projects elsewhere too.

Gadkari urged the Tamil Nadu government to support the building of a new port in Enayam near Kolachal.

The union minister was in Chennai to inaugurate different projects in the state at an outlay of Rsa1,492 crore, at the Kamarajar Port that includes the Adani group’s Rs. 1,270 crore container terminal; Rs.151 crore multi-cargo terminal operated by Chettinad Group; Rs.60 crore railway line for the container and multi-cargo terminals and Rs.11.82 crore radio-frequency identification system.