MANGALORE: The experiment to arrest the advance of the sea into the Nethravati by placing sandbags has failed.

Hosabettu near Surathkal is still facing problems owing to sea erosion.

The harbour wing of the Public Works Department had, on the advice of the Applied Mechanics and Hydraulics Department of the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, taken up temporary relief measures at Kotepura during the last monsoon by laying sandbags along the affected regions. An official of the harbour wing maintained that the plan was to lay at least eight layers of the bags along 100 metres.

Sandbags have already been placed along 15 meters.

This will help minimise the effects of sea erosion.

For the residents of Kotepura, these short-term attempts at preventing sea erosion by various departments (earlier the Department of Minor Irrigation and now the Public Works Department) have failed to provide a permanent solution to combat the problem that has resulted in loss of life and property.

For years residents along the 300 km coastline of the State have been forced to face the fury of nature. The Minor Irrigation Department had proposed a Rs. 575-crore `National Coastal Protection Project' to prevent sea erosion.

The project envisaged the construction of seawalls along 211 km of the coastline at an estimated cost of Rs. 398.95 crores and works to protect the river-bank along 66 km at a cost of Rs. 25.74 crores.

However, the harbour wing of the PWD maintains that the present proposal includes the construction of three breakwaters. The proposal has been forwarded to the Coastal Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS), Pune, for technical approval, the department said.

According to K.R. Subrahmanya of the Department of Marine Geology, Mangalore University, construction of seawalls will not help, as "sand churning" is a natural phenomenon in the rainy season. The sand is transported from one place to another and it gets restored to its original place when the sea is calm.

In fact a paper produced by Prof. K.R. Subramanya states that it is un-necessary to intervene in this process as it is not dangerous at all.

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