Centre formulates plans to rehabilitate coastal people hit by rising sea level: Jitendra Singh

New Delhi: The Union government has formulated plans to rehabilitate people from low- lying coastal areas who may be adversely impacted due to rising sea levels in the coming decade, Union minister Jitendra Singh informed the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, the minister said, “NDMA has prepared a draft policy on “Mitigation and Rehabilitation measures for people displaced by Coastal and River Erosion” to deal with the extensive displacement of people caused by coastal and river erosion.”

The minister pointed out that Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), an autonomous organization of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), has formulated Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) mapping to assess probable implications of rising sea level along the Indian coast.

He said, this exercise has generated maps using seven input parameters: shoreline change rate, sea-level change rate, coastal elevation, coastal slope, coastal geomorphology, significant wave height and tidal range.

A report on “National Assessment of Shoreline Changes along Indian Coast” was shared with various Central and State government Agencies and Stakeholders for implementing shoreline protection measures. MoES through its institutes is also providing technical solutions and advice to the State Governments and UTs to deal with coastal erosion threats.

National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), Chennai, an attached office of MoES is monitoring the shoreline erosion since 1990 using remote sensing data and GIS mapping techniques.

According to the Ministry of Earth Science, a total of 6907.18 km long coastline of the mainland was analyzed for the period from 1990 to 2018. It noted that 33.6% of the coastline is under varying degree of erosion, 26.9% is of accreting nature and the remaining 39.5% is in a stable state.