Lack of data delaying coastal regulation plan, stop-gap policy to be less stringent

With the coastal management plan to regulate development along India8217;s 7,500 km coastline likely to be delayed, a less stringent...

With the coastal management plan to regulate development along India8217;s 7,500 km coastline likely to be delayed, a less stringent, interim arrangement may soon be in place, one which will please city developers and planners who have been waiting for word on the new line meant to regulate construction activity along the coast.

In the wake of the tsunami in December, 2004, the urgency to draw a vulnerability line on 8220;scientific principles8221; was felt. Presently, there is a blanket ban on all construction 500-m from the sea, irrespective of the topography.

The Swaminathan committee submitted a report in February 2005, recommending a coastal management plan where the vulnerability line was to be based on scientific principles for every town and village. This was to replace the current Coastal Regulation Zone CRZ Act 1991. This was to impact a large number of people as an estimated 15 of India8217;s population live along the coast.

But once drafters went to the drawing board, they realised that they did not have the data from the Survey of India to draw a hazard map for the entire country. In other words, without access to data on the behaviour of waves, high and low tides, storm surges and erosion, a notification to the effect would have remained only on paper.

So for now, policy-makers have decided to stick to basic shoreline changes 8212; erosion and accretion, and not the highest storm surge. What is already available is the classification of the vulnerability of various talukas. So a new set-back line, keeping the base as 500 metres from the high tide level, will be drawn for all these talukas.

The new notification will not specify the vulnerability line for every area but will lay down the guiding principles that will determine this line. The original idea of basing it on the highest storm surge would have meant leaving large tracts of land, especially along the east coast with flat, delta plains development-free.

According to the government, the notification has to be based on a practical criterion to make it easy for planners to implement it.

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To do the groundwork for this notification, national institutes like Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre were asked to map the vulnerability line in four locations as a pilot project 8212;Gujarat, Mangalore, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. Even in the pilot plan, they realised lack of data was a major hindrance.

8220;We are on the right track. The main thing was to validate the method to do hazard mapping. But the practical implication needs to kept in mind,8221; said Prodipto Ghosh, Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, justifying why it is not possible to do hazard mapping for the entire country straightaway.

In future, a coastal management plan will take care of buildings already constructed close to the coast. They may have a more advanced system of early warning than other settlements in the same town or village. It would not mean demolishing existing construction along the coast, Ghosh clarified.

The Ministry of Environment and Forest has been brainstorming on this for nearly a year now. They claim they have found a way of finalising it now. According to sources, it should be be ready for the Cabinet in the coming few weeks.