Now Reading: Aryapalli village faces sea erosion threat, residents refuse to leave
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Aryapalli village faces sea erosion threat, residents refuse to leave
Aryapalli village in Odisha's Ganjam district is facing the threat of disappearing into the sea as coastal erosion advances. Despite a rehabilitation project after Cyclone Phailin in 2013, most residents have returned…
Aryapalli village in Odisha's Ganjam district is facing the threat of disappearing into the sea as coastal erosion advances. Despite a rehabilitation project after Cyclone Phailin in 2013, most residents have returned to their ancestral homes, citing lack of basic amenities in the new houses.
Only about 30 per cent of beneficiaries live in houses built under the Odisha Disaster Recovery Project (ODRP), while 70 per cent have rented them out and returned to the vulnerable coast. Stone-packing work along the shoreline has begun but appears insufficient against the advancing sea.
Ganjam Collector V. Keerthi Vasan has ordered an inquiry into the renting out of ODRP houses and promised steps to address residents' problems. Nearby Podampeta village, which faced similar erosion, has become a ghost village.
Indian Opinion Analysis
Coastal erosion along the Odisha coast has been a recurring problem, with the state government and the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences monitoring shoreline changes since the 1990s. The ODRP, funded partly by the World Bank, was meant to relocate families from high-risk zones after Phailin, but the return of residents shows that infrastructure in resettlement colonies often lags behind housing construction. The Ganjam collector's inquiry may reveal whether the ODRP houses are being misused, but the larger issue remains: without drinking water and schools, families will keep moving back. The next monsoon will test whether the stone-packing can hold or whether Aryapalli follows Podampeta into abandonment.
Source: odishatv.in
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
