The residents in the coastal village of Chellanam in Ernakulam district, which faces the severe problem of sea erosion, have been constantly demanding for a seawall. Their recurrent protests finally yielded results on Saturday. The construction of the geotube seawall, which came to a halt just days after it was started in January 2019, has resumed.
A geotube, which are made of stacks of natural or synthetic fibre, is filled with sand to form a seawall. At present, workers are preparing the ground to lay the geotubes.
However, they are met with another hurdle - the unavailability of sand to fill geotubes.
While workers are trying to pump sand from sea to land to fill the geotubes, officials of the Irrigation Department are yet to sort out this issue. This was, in fact, the reason why the work came to a halt initially.
After recurrent protests by villagers, the authorities finally decided to use the accumulated sand available at Chellanam Mini Fishing Harbour to fill the geotubes. But now, this alternative also seems out of bounds.
A large quantity of sand had been accumulated at the harbour over the last few months. On Saturday, when the Irrigation department tried to use some of it for the seawall construction, the Department of Ports opposed the move. According to reports, the officials of Department of Ports filed a complaint with the Kannamaly police station in Chellanam, citing that the contractor was taking sand from the harbour without the necessary permissions.
An official at the Irrigation Department told TNM that the Ports department wants to use the sand available at the harbour for some extension work that has been planned there. He has also alleged that the inefficiency on the part of the contractor engaged has delayed the work, and that the District Collector is aware of this.
“At present, the contractor engaged in the work is trying to take sand from the sea. The Collector has given the contractor one more day to complete the work. If he is not able to dredge sand from the sea, he will be terminated and an emergency tender will be called. There will be no change in this,” said the official.
On Saturday, ground preparation work on one of the stretches of the proposed work site was completed.
The demand for the construction of seawall gained momentum after Ockhi cyclone disaster in 2017. Hundreds of houses in Chellanam, a coastal village, were affected during the sea erosion during Ockhi. The village also lost two fishermen in the disaster. The government gave the nod to construct geotube seawall in the village after residents of Chellanam began a hunger strike following Ockhi, demanding a mechanism be built that would prevent sea erosion.
In the last two months alone, the villagers took out three major protests. Last Wednesday, hundreds of people marched towards the District Collectorate, demanding seawall construction be resumed.
The project, being implemented at Rs 8 crore, will see a geotube seawall being built on the coastline running along Chellanam in Velankanni Bazaar (300 metres from the sea), Vachakkal (100 metres from the sea), Companypady (300 metres from the sea) and Puthenthode Fishing Gap (110 metres).
In January, work had started in one part of Velankanni Bazaar, until it was halted. On Saturday, work resumed in another part of the bazaar.
“We were happy to see that the work has finally resumed, but it is unfortunate that the authorities have not been able to coordinate among themselves to solve the issue of sand unavailability,” Babu, a resident of Chellanam told TNM.