Ingress of salinity has made life miserable in several seaside areas of Kendrapada district as the water in most of the wells and tube wells have become unsuitable for consumption. Besides thousands of acres of agricultural land has become waste due to salinity in Mahakalpada and Rajnagar blocks, hitting the poor farmers hard.
When the first salinity ingress was noticed in 1970s, the phenomenon was limited to a few villages close to the sea coast. Gradually, however, it penetrated into a belt of up to three to five km from the coast. At that time, salinity ingress was attributed to imbalance between the availability of ground water and its disproportionate use. It was also found that the coastal areas were a vulnerable track for the ingress of salinity due to rampant illegal felling of mangrove forest and excess use of groundwater through tube wells and wells. Besides, the seaside areas are prone to ingress of sea water during the each high tide periods.
According toAssistant Executive Engineer Bibhuti Ranjan Panda, the presence of choliride content in ground water was beyond the acceptable limit in not less than 50 villages in two blocks .To check the ingress of the sea water into the seaside areas the Government had constructed saline embankments in the district in 1970s but due to lack of proper maintenance and rampant irregularities, sea water maroons into large tracts of agriculture land in the seaside villages during each high tide period and cyclonic weather .
Hundreds of farmers have stopped paddy cultivation near the seaside lands within one km from the Bay of Bengal. Farmers of distant places from the sea may soon have to stop paddy cultivation in favour of crops consuming less water but giving less financial output. In many villages, the ground water level has sunk 300 to 400 feet low , making it difficult for the farmers to install and operate water pumps for irrigation, informed several seaside villagers of Rajnagar.
Reckless exploitation of the ground water resource and non-functioning of defunct lift irrigation points in these areas have sealed the fate of a large number of farmers.
As a consequence of the receding water table, the farmers have been forced to further dig the existing tube wells which at places have reached a depth of over 400 feet. In such deep tube wells, they have to install powerful pump sets to draw water. As a result, the salinity level in the ground water level is rapidly increasing, added official sources.
Further going down the surface in quest of water has over the years become hazardous and caused loss of money for many farmers. Many farmers were ruined after spending more money to irrigate their agricultural land by using motors, alleged farmer leader Gayadhar Dhal.
Notably, in 1960s the coastal belts of Kendrapada and Jagatasinghpur areas were covered with mangrove vegetation but with the development of industrialization and Port at Paradip the mangrove vegetations were denuded. Even, the Government had also cleared hundreds of acres of mangrove forest in coastal belts to settle refugees from Bangladesh in 1970s.
Mangrove forests are the natural barriers to prevent soil erosion and ingress of saline water into the coastal areas and due to excessive damage of the mangrove vegetation, the seaside villagers have been facing salinity ingress problems. Many villagers of the seaside areas walk two to three km to bring drinking water as the salinity water is not fit to drink. The situation is worst in Mangalpur and Barakandha panchayats under Mahakalapada. Here the chloride content in water is more than 1,000 milligram per litter which is not fit for human consumption.
On the contrary, due to ingress of saline water into the seaside areas, the prawn mafias are increasingly converting the lands into prawn farms for dollar spinning prawn business.
According to District Magistrate Debaraj Senapati , the district administration has directed to the RWSS Department to provide drinking water by water tankers to the seaside villagers, where the water of tube well and well has become saline. Besides, steps are afoot to evict all the illegal prawn farms which were erected by violating CRZ (Coastal Regulation Zone) norms.