Orissa has a 476.6-km coastline covering the districts of Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Ganjam. In the perspective of history, prosperity of any district or State generally determined by connectivity in terms of waterways. In this sense, the above-stated six districts of the State are in an advantaged condition. But in the changing climatic condition, these districts are facing severe threat due to erosion of the seashore. The erosion-prone Satabhaya cluster of hamlets in Kendrapara district for the first time figured in the global map of climate change as climate’s first orphan of Orissa. Then the marine drive of Puri drew the attention of environmentalists across the globe. Rajnagar block of Kendrapada district is now under high threat due to sea erosion. Starting from Gahirmatha to Barunei confluence point–the 25 km of coastline is getting eroded. Every year, sea is grasping land mass and the sea water is walking closer to the residential areas in coastline.
Kanpur village in Kendrapada, before nearly 55 years, was at least 5 km from the sea. At present, the sea has touched the village grasping 17 houses in the village, two tube wells and two rice mills. One of the two tube wells, which was once located in the middle of the village, is now 100 feet inside the sea. Even the sand bags that were laid around the village after the first inundation at an expense of nearly one lakh rupees have been submerged under sea water. The 303 households that still remain in the village are in a state of constant panic thinking another inundation would completely engulf the village.
The story sounds same in nearby Satabhaya village. Five villages under the Satabhaya Panchayat have already disappeared in the sea and the people of Satabhaya village are waiting with fear for their turn. Every year, the sea is grasping around 50 metres of land mass of Satabhaya region.
According to revenue department, during 1930 settlement, Satabhaya region was of 320 sqkm. But in 2000, the region has been reduced to 155 sqkm. As per a journal,‘Global Environmental Negotiation’, if sea level rises one metre from the current level, 1,70,000 hectares of cultivable land in Orissa will be submerged. Current erosion in marine drive of Puri has made the situation more panic. Saline ingression is adding flavour to it. If this trend continues, the day will come, when history will repeat and the Sun Temple of Konark will be at sea.
While the scourge of sea erosion in Satabhaya-Kanpur have often hogged the newspaper headlines, very few are aware of the fury of this form of natural calamity that has already wrought worst havoc in another part of this coastal district. This is yet another classic case of how helpless the humans are before the cruel nature and what the mighty sea could do to wipe out human settlements. The Pentha cluster of hamlets in Brahmanasahi hamlet faces the imminent threat of extinction from the civilization map. But unlike Satabhaya facing the sea wrath, these cursed hamlets and its inhabitants have escaped the attention of government agencies till date. The villages like Pentha, Endulasahi, Prasanapur, Sundaripala and Khandamara under Brahmanasahi Gram Panchayat had escaped the 1971 cyclonic devastation. But the safety of these villagers is now at stake as intensity of sea erosion is alarming and frightening to say the least, according to the manner in which sea is menacingly crawling towards Pentha and three other villages at least twice (full moon and new moon days) in each month, it’s quite realistic that the next generation may find their ancestral villages gobbled up by seawaters.
If the experience of relocating those who have already lost their home and hearth due to erosion is anything to go by, it is amply clear that rehabilitation of all the villages threatened by erosion would be a gigantic task. Let us take the case of the five villages of Satabhaya Island which have already been submerged under water. In 1992, the then Biju Patnaik Government prepared a master plan to rehabilitate the people of these five villages in the Sunei-Rupei jungles at an expense of Rs 95.25 lakh. But work on the plan was stalled fearing adverse impact on the environment after spending over Rs 13 lakh in digging ponds and constructing roads and dwelling places. The rest of the sanctioned amount still lies unspent in the government’s PL account.
A full 12 years after the first abortive attempt to rehabilitate the displaced, Chief Minister Navin Patnaik – who, incidentally, is the son of Biju Patnaik – laid the foundation for the construction of ‘Biju Nagar’, a township named after his father, for them at Magarkanda. Speaking on the occasion, Patnaik promised that a strong ring embankment would be constructed along the coast to protect the people from the sea at an expense of Rs 35 lakh to be spent from the unutilized money lying in the PL account of the original plan. But the local people are skeptical about the latest plan since the area earmarked for the construction of the proposed township is being cultivated by the residents of the nearby Okilapal village since 1971. If the Government goes ahead with its plan to rehabilitate the displaced there, it would only lead to conflict between them and the neo-settlers, they apprehend.
The Government has been making plans for the people of Satabhaya since 1977, but none of them has seen the light of the day, they rue. Skeptical about the Government’s rehabilitation measures, hundreds of families in the two remaining villages in Satabhaya have now shifted out to relatively safer places of their choice. 72 families of Satabhaya village have settled down at Magarkanda and have named their new hamlet Atasala. 60 families from Satabhaya and 20 from neighbouring Kanpur have taken refuge under a mound near the Ekakula mouth which now goes by the name of Balisahi. The newly established village of Barahipur near the Wheeler Island houses 40 erstwhile families of Satabhaya and five of Kanpur.
This being the record of the Government in rehabilitating just seven villages uprooted by erosion, it is beyond comprehension how it is going to relocate the hundreds of villages for which the countdown has already begun.
(The writer is Programme Officer, Water Programme, Regional Centre for Development Cooperation, Bhubaneswar)
