CHENNAI: The much-anticipated passenger ferry service between India and Sri Lanka would be launched on October 10.
"The passenger ferry service will run from Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam to the port of Kankesanthurai in Jaffna, Lanka. The service would offer an excellent opportunity for the people of India and Sri Lanka to make a low cost trip to Jaffna and Tamil Nadu, " said the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI).
This new ferry service will strengthen the historical ties between both the nations and the transit time between the two ports will be just three hours and to make the travel more economical, we offer a 40 kg free baggage allowance, it added.
The ferry services between the two nations would resume after India and Sri Lanka signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on passenger transportation by sea in 2011.
The services would boost regional trade and tourism and promote stronger people-to-people ties, said an official with SCI.
The Indo-Ceylon Express or Board Mail, which ran between Chennai and Colombo through the Thoothukudi port between India and Sri Lanka in the early 1900s, was stopped in 1982 following the civil war between Sri Lankan forces and the Tamil rebels.