Kendrapara sea wall project completed

Kendrapara: The construction of Odisha's first geo-synthetic tube sea wall project to arrest sea erosion along the Pentha coast has been completed, bringing relief to people living in vulnerable coastal villages in the district.

According to project officials, mooted in 2008, the project had suffered a setback following rupture of one of the synthetic tubes. Experts had found loopholes in the installation process of geo-synthetic tubes and the project work was suspended midway in July last year.

Executive engineer of saline embankment division of the project, Purna Chandra Raththe said the project envisaged a 505-metre-long wall consisting of 241 geo-tubes.

The seawall project formed a part of the Integrated Coastal Zone Management Programme and was funded by the World Bank. The construction work was carried out under the technical expertise and guidance of the IIT Chennai, he said.

Odisha is the second state in the country to have undertaken such a project on a pilot basis after neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, the official said.

The project was mooted in 2008. Past studies indicated that more than 36 per cent of the coast in Kendrapara faced threat of erosion, the problem being most acute near habitations such as Pentha and Satbhaya in Kendrapara.