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Orissa greens oppose coastal highway

M I Khan in Bhubaneswar

Environmentalists have cleared the Orissa government's blueprint for rehabilitating and restoring the cyclone affected areas of coastal Orissa, but not without reservations.

The one thing that has got the greens' goat is a proposal to construct a long coastal highway which they feel will lead to further ecological disaster rather than providing any solution.

In a bid to convince the government not to go in for the proposed coastal highway, they have suggested that a green belt of 2 to 3 km depth be created throughout the coastline. They argue that the green belt should be given top-most priority in the disaster management action plan in order to prevent cyclones and tidal surges to the maximum extent possible.

The coastal highway is likely to be funded by the World Bank.

President of the Orissa Krushak Mahasangh, Banka Behary Das, who was leading the Chilka Bachao Andolan (save Chilka lake movement of the early '90s) warned that government officials are talking about the highway without the slightest idea that it would further aggravate floods and water-logging in the coastal areas.

"All existing mangrove forests on the coast should be protected and strengthened and in areas where mangroves existed even till independence, they should be regenerated," he said.

This effort will, however, cover only about half of Orissa's 480 km coastline, and in the other half forests with a depth of 2 to 3 km should be created with indigenous species including casuarinas, he said.

Das said the travails of the super cyclone would have been much reduced had the mangrove forests been retained. Environmentalists say that due to the apathy and collusion of the state administration, all the mangrove forests have been destroyed first in the name of development and agriculture and finally for prawn culture.

In 1990, Orissa's coastline had a mangrove forest area of around 150 sq km, which had come down to barely 50 sq km by 1999.

The Orissa government proposed a Rs 10 billion plan for the coastal highway from Gopalpur in southern Orissa to Digha in the Bengal-Orissa border in the north. The state government has already forwarded the proposal to the World Bank.

In a recent meeting between state government officials and a World Bank team which visited state to assess the damage caused by the cyclone, the officials were assured that the proposal would be considered.

The state chief secretary S B Mishra, in a workshop organised in collaboration with the United Nations last week on strategic planning for cyclone affected people, said the proposed highway, besides providing shelter at the time of calamities, would also function as a saline embankment.

However, green leaders like Das have dubbed the proposal of coastal highway as a "mad" proposal which will not help the people. Instead it will increase the problems of the people living in the cyclone prone zone in the state.

"Such a mad proposal should be nipped in the bud," Das told rediff.com and recalled that such a proposal was mooted just after the 1971 cyclone in the state which claimed 10,000 people but he had violently opposed it even then.

Das, in his letter to the UN representative in the state, hoped that it will convey the environmentalists' opposition to the World Bank and to the United Nations without delay. "In spite of our objection if the mad project is processed and the World Bank collaborates with it, both the state government and the World Bank will face the volcanic ire of the people. I and people of Orissa will resist it tooth and nail," he wrote in his letter.

"After the 1971 cyclone, only in Mahakaalpada block in Kenderapara district, about 10,000 people died but the entire area to the north and south was saved because of the protective green wall to the north and south of this small zone," he pointed out and said mangroves were the only answer to preventing cyclones.

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