Bhubaneswar: Madras IIT Professor Sundarbodyvellu arrived at Bhubaneswar on Wednesday and went to the pilgrim town of Puri on Friday to study the currently prevalent high tidal waves in the sea and suggest measures to be undertaken by the Odisha Government for natural rebuild of massive soil erosion check there.
“We have to use some special type of dredger in that Mangala river to remove the sand bars. Once we do it, this problem will disappear. As regards to the erosion which has taken place in front of Swarga Dwar (about 2.5 metre cut) has been deposited now. Nothing needed to be done for it. But we have to find a protection for the 150 metre stretch?, informed Professor Sundarbodyvellu.
“Causes of these erosion are heavy cyclonic wind and waves. These erosions occur once in four to five years, as it was in 2007, but it gets filled up within a week,” he added.
When asked about the solution regarding this problem, he said,”Chillika lake mouth was opened in 2000 and now it is working properly, similarly we will open Mangala river mouth with the help of a dredger. The permanent solution to this problem is to keep the mouth open.”
“This is a long process. We have to do some studies, submit the reports. Work will be started only in January, as the sedimentary transport which carries the sand will not be there in January, February and March,” he disclosed.
“As it is monsoons, there is high tide so any dredging on our part will be again deposited. They have assessed to dredge out around one lakh quintal of sand. How it can be effectively executed is their main concern. I have requested the IIT professor to give the preliminary reports within a week,” informed J.B Mohapatra, engineer-in-chief, Water Resources Department.
As high tidal waves have been hitting the Puri sea beach and advancing towards the coastline triggering panic among people, Odisha Government had sought the help of Madras IIT expert and the ocean scientist had consented to take stock of the situation.
