Report by Michael Rodrigues
Team Mangalorean Udupi

Udupi: Sea Erosion has been a perennial problem in the Coastal areas of the district here. Apart from that what is interesting is, District Administration has no money for taking even temporary controlling measures. Still more interesting is that many contractors getting heavy budget sanctioned had just dropped a few boulders into the sea border and walked away pocketing the lumpsum sanction of money producing all imaginary figures of doing the job !  Now if the residents of the sea bordering area  were to  get washed away who to ask - the elected representatives of the area or the contractors represented by them to get their job done is the intriguing question !

People have been threatened this time of Sea Erosion beyond imagination. Coconut and other trees, including land have been washed away to the sea already and the entire coastal area is endangered.  The real problem is that either some measures need to be taken to contain Sea Erosion or the residents near the sea border need to be shifted to some safe places meaning they need to be rehabilitated. Our District Administrative body doesn't have necessary resources for any one of this !  This time the gravity of the situation is much more than all these years before.

 With the relentless downpour of rains this time three places at Udyavara Padukere measuring an area of 150 meters, at Padu Thottam nearing Kaup 100 meters, at Kodi near Kundapur about 100 mts of land bordering the sea is already washed ashore. If  ten coconut trees have been washed away in the silting at  Padu Thottam,  at a place called Kodi the waves come and hit the commuters on the road directly showing the capacity of the waves to take away the entire road and the commuters.
This time the District Administration has requested for 2 crores of aid for containing the natural calamity such as Sea Erosion that is occurring  in the Karavali region.  Not even a small amount has been sanctioned till now. Seems like the District Administration is in no way able to do anything about this issue now.

With the resignation of Krishna J Palemar, the Port & Fisheries portfolio is still vacant, and the portfolio of Dr. VS Acharya has gone vacant after his death. Nobody is there to take initiative to do something about this problem. Period.

Last time when money was sanctioned for this problem of Sea Erosion, the contractors were not paid for their pending bills, it is learnt, The money for 2009-10 & 2010-11 amounting to 3.25 crores money has not been paid to the concerned contractor, it is learnt.  So logically, the work is not getting done over the bottlenecks in the entire process of administrative machinery.

Taluk Panchayath member Veronica Cornelio speaking to Mangalorean.com said that since there is no Minister, no money has been sanctioned for natural disasters at all.

Dr. MT Reju, Deputy Commissioner informs that despite his  proposal for 2 crores to the Government for this purpose, nothing has been heard so far.

Anantha Movadi, Zilla Panchayath member says that not even a single paise has been sanctioned hitherto, this is injustice done to the entire fishing community.  Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda being the man from this area, also had no effect or consequence. There is no Minister to take care of this constituency after Dr. VS Acharya had passed away.