A two- member World Bank team, including ICZMP India project head Milan and team leader A Ramkrishna on Wednesday visited the sea erosion prone Pentha village at Rajnagar in order to assess the ongoing construction of a geo synthetic sea wall.
This is Odisha’s first ever geo-synthetic tube sea wall near the Pentha beach. The World Bank officials expressed their satisfaction over the progress of sea wall project, stated Aul Saline Embankment Executive Engineer Jugal Kishore Tripathy.
According to Tripathy, Pune-based Garware Wall Ropes limited has been entrusted for the project with an estimated cost of Rs 32.95 crore. While 75 per cent of the project cost has been provided by the World Bank, 15 per cent of the project cost is funded by the Central Government and 10 per cent is borne by the State Water Resources Department.
All the 234 geo tubes have been laid for construction of the wall to protect nearly 35,000 sea erosion prone people in 36 villages in Rajnagar block.
“Due to paucity of funds, some stone gabion package works are yet to be completed. We have requested the Government of India to disburse Rs 13 crore for completing the stone gabion packing and clear the pending arrears. Meanwhile, it has been expected that the sea wall work would be completed before June 15,” stated Tripathy.
The geo tubes have a length of 20 metre and height of 7.4 metre each. They have been fitted on a 505-metre stretch to stop the sea waves from eroding the coastline.
Notably, sand water mixture (commonly a slurry) is filled in the typical fabric geo tube with the help of machine pumping for applying pressure. When the slurry is filled, the water comes out from the tube and only sand remains in the tube.