Bhubaneswar: Ranjan Panda, an environmentalist and a member of Water Initiatives, Odisha, has written a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik urging him to suitably rehabilitate climate refugees in the coastline, especially Udayakani and Tandahara in Astaranga block, Puri district and improve facilities in rehabilitation colony in Bagapatia of Kendrapara.
In his letter, Panda has brought to the Chief Minister’s notice the plight of thousands of villagers in Odisha’s coasts who are gradually being pushed back by an inundating sea because of climate change and related challenges.
He said, “In March and May this year, we conducted a study and exposure trips to the Udayakani village in the Sisuo panchayat under Astaranga block of Puri district and found out how these people have been suffering because of a rapidly invading sea.”
He said this village is going to have a watery grave in a few years, thanks to the rapid sea incursion. The invading sea has forced the villagers to relocate thrice since the 1999 Super Cyclone when the entire village went into the sea forcing people to move to their farmlands.
During Phailin in 2014, they had to shift inland again after the village got sand cast. While they had been under tremendous stress after losing their homesteads and farm lands, the recent cyclone Fani had further worsened their condition by making their remaining land and water sources more saline.
The villagers had built a drain along the sea to prevent the seepage of saline water to the village. But it failed to protect the village from saline ingress during Fani. The casuarina forest which they had planted earlier to protect the village from saline ingress was destroyed in the recent cyclonic storm.
According to the villagers, in the last 50 years, the sea has marched 5km inland and after 1999, the incursion has been faster. All the 30 individual tube-wells and two tube-wells set up by the government are drawing saline water and the villagers have no option but to use that water for daily needs, including drinking.
Consumption and use of saline water has affected the health of most villagers. However, the four summer months are a bit respite for them as government water tankers provide 40 litres of drinking water to each household every alternative day.
Water in two ponds of the village is also severely saline. Coconut farming, once a major source of their livelihood, has become a thing of the past. Due to severe salinity in the wind and water, the fruiting gets affected and those who used to get at least 50 coconuts per tree every year fail to get even two. Inhabited by around 55 families earlier, the village has now 44 families. Others have been forced to migrate to other places. Almost all the youth of the village have migrated to other places within the state or outside.
The letter said, looking into the above and considering the fact that near about one third of Odisha’s coastline is already vulnerable to sea ingress due to climate change, may we request you to please look into this matter with utmost urgency and take steps such as proper rehabilitation package; provision of basic amenities and livelihood support, among others.