Tamil Nadu - Nagercoil   

Sea walls to be constructed to prevent coastal erosion

By Our Staff Reporter

NAGERCOIL, NOV. 8. The Government will construct sea walls in Kanyakumari, Tuticorin, Ramanathapuram, Nagapattinam, Thiruvarur, Kancheepuram and Chennai north (Ennore Express Highway reach) to prevent coastal erosion, the Chief Engineer of PWD (Madurai division), K.Ragupathy, said. This will be done for 23.36 km at an estimated cost of Rs. 133.35.

Inaugurating a workshop on coastal protection measures organised jointly by the International Ocean Institute and the Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT Madras, at Kanyakumari recently, Mr. Ragupathy said that the Government would construct 10 groins in the worst-affected 3.5 km stretch along the North Chennai coast and remould the damaged sea wall. Work had started and would be completed at the earliest.

Dredging to be done

Dredging would be done at some river mouths, to facilitate the natural coastal recharge process. The Government has also proposed a vegetative protection by cultivating Tidal palms, which grows even in saline, brackish and swampy conditions in the coasts of Kanyakumari, Tuticorin and Ramanathapuram districts. He said that the Bay of Bengal coast was more prone to cyclones than the Arabian sea coast as cyclones were five times more frequent in the Bay of Bengal than in the Arabian Sea. The cyclones along the eastern coast were more destructive than the cyclones of the Arabian Sea. There had been more than 35 cyclones since 1900. About three cyclones or depressions affect the Tamil Nadu coastline annually. The tidal waves, heavy rainfall and winds that accompany them intensify coastal erosion.

Government intervention

The coastal erosion in the State has attracted the Government's attention from the early 1950s. The State has been implementing protection measures to suit the individual site conditions. But the interventions have been in the nature of fire fighting operations and crisis management because of the magnitude of the problem and the resource constraints. Due to the recent Government intervention, measures were being initiated with assistance from HUDCO to prevent sea erosion in Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts, Mr.Ragupathy said.

The Head of Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT, V.Sundar said that the coastal line of the Kanyakumari district faces the Arabian sea and there is coastal erosion during the south-west monsoon from mid-May to mid-September every year.

The coastline in Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Ramanathapuram also faces sea erosion during the northeast monsoon.

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