The residents of seaside village Pentha and its adjoining villages under Rajnagar block in Kendrapada district have now every reason to heave a sigh of relief as the much awaited State’s first ever geo-synthetic tube seawall work is underway for last 10 days. The wall, proposed to be set at a cost of Rs 32.95 crore, is aimed at checking soil erosion at the seashore along Pentha village.
According to official sources, the geo-synthetic tube made up of high resin would be placed alongside the erosion-protective embankment at Pentha and sand will be filled inside it to put an end to the crawling of marauding sea towards human habitation.
The length of the proposed sea wall would be 675 meters whereas its height would be 7.4 meters and width for meters. The geo-synthetic tube would withstand the impact of ultra-violet ray and tidal velocity, said Jugal Kishore Tripathy, the executive engineer of Ali saline embankment division.
The Pune-based Garware Wall Ropes ltd has been entrusted for the project and the deadline for the construction work has been fixed for October 2014. Now, the stone packing work is going on the saline embankment that was badly damaged due to Phailin. As soon as stone packing work is over, the geo-synthetic tube seawall work would commence, said Tripathy.
The much-delayed project has started under World Bank-funded Integrated Coastal Zone Management Programme (ICZMP) to protect the vulnerable villages from sea erosion in Rajnagar block.
“Erosion control is easily solved by installation of the geo-tube erosion barrier. This apart, shoreline restoration is also easily achieved by its installation as it acts as a natural sand filter. It is a low-cost shoreline restoration, easy and fast to install with little or no impact on existing landscape,” claimed Tripathy.
Notably, the decision to erect geo-tube to check sea erosion was taken by the State Government on the findings of IIT, Chennai and the survey reports of OSDMA and the oceanographic experts. They had studied the beach profile, moisture contents of sandy particles, morphology of the eroded beach, intensity, frequency and velocity of the waves after tidal wave started ingressing into the human habitations in regular intervals, added Tripathy.
Once the geo-synthetic seawall is erected, nearly 36 villages of four gram panchayats in Rajnagar block will be protected from massive erosion at the seashore. According to official sources, the sea has come close to 3 km from the human habitation in last 13 years.