Date:13/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/13/stories/2008081357880300.htm

Other States - Orissa

State to rehabilitate villagers of Satabhaya coast

Special Correspondent

Decision emerges from meeting chaired by the Chief Minister

They will be provided farm land and a house under Indira Awas Yojana
Five villages lost existence due to sea erosion

BHUBANESWAR: Finally realising the plight of the 483 families that have been living under constant fear of the sea on Satabhaya coast in Kendrapara district, Naveen Patnaik Government on Tuesday decided to shift them to safer places.

A decision in this regard was taken at a high-level meeting chaired under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the State Secretariat here.

Talking to presspersons after the meeting, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Manmohan Samal said the families living in Satabhaya and Kanhupur villages will be rehabilitated in and around four villages such as Magarkanda, Rabindrapalli, Dartrapada and Padmanabha Patna. These villages were around 10 km away from the shoreline.

The Kendrapara district administration has been asked to talk to the villagers and find out their place of choice and accordingly initiate measures to shift them, Mr. Samal said.

Objections

As per the government’s decision, each of the 483 families that would be relocated would be provided 10 decimal of homestead land, two acre of agricultural land and an Indira Awas Yojana house.

The predicament of around 3,000 people living in Satabhaya and Kanhupur villages had been hogging the headlines for the several years whenever the hamlets faced the wrath of the sea waves.

The government had also drawn up a plan to relocate the families in a safer area several years ago.

However, objections from the State Forest Department had delayed the initiative as the land earmarked for the purpose came under forestland category.

The area facing the danger from the sea was called Satabhaya as a cluster of seven hamlets existed there in the past.

But five villages such as Sarapada, Gobindapur, Kaunria, Kharikula and Mahanipur had lost their existence due to sea erosion during the past five decades.

While some of the families displaced by the sea had moved to Satabhaya and Kanhupur villages others had moved to far off places on their own.