BHUBANESWAR: Two ambitious beach development projects at Talasari-Udaypur and Chandrabhaga are yet to make any headway even as the government is planning to improve tourism amenities at beaches across the State.
Both the projects were announced by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in January last year and works were to be completed by October, 2021. However, development and beautification plans for the two beaches are moving at a snail's pace.
While work on Chandrabhaga beach in Puri district has not started, that at Talasari-Udaypur in Balasore has been put on hold. Government has earmarked Rs 29.8 crore for Talasari and Rs 42 crore for Chandrabhaga.
During the pre-COVID period, Talasari-Udaypur used to get around 4 lakh tourists annually and Chandrabhaga over 7.5 lakh visitors in the year 2020. Currently, both the beaches are without even basic amenities like washrooms and drinking water facilities.
Parking spots, washrooms, drinking water facilities, beach lighting, rest sheds besides, good hotels and restaurants are to come up in Talasari. Similarly Chandrabhaga - which was the first beach in Odisha to get the 'Blue Flag' tag in 2018 - is to be developed for water sports, open air theatre, cycling tracks, landscaping, vending besides, public amenities and amusement park for children.
District tourist officer, Balasore, Gagan Sahoo said the Talasari beach development and beautification work had to be put on hold after an embankment (sea protection wall) across the sea coast was damaged in cyclone Yaas last year.
The embankment was constructed along the entire 2.6 km of Talasari-Udaypur beach stretch. He said as of today, 75 per cent lighting work on the beach has been completed by the executing agency - National Building Construction Corporation.
Since December last year, the Irrigation wing under the Water Resources department has been reconstructing the sea wall and a drain alongside it at the cost of Rs 20.73 crore. "It has been decided that the irrigation wing has to complete the embankment work in at least 300 metres of the 2.6 km stretch by May 20 after which, NBCC will begin the other works," Sahoo added.
As far as Chandrabhaga beach is concerned, sources in the Works department which is implementing the project said the chief engineer (building) has sought permission from the government to implement the work on a turn-key basis. Tender for the project will be floated only after getting the permission.
Odisha posts marginal rise in new COVID cases
BHUBANESWAR: Odisha posted a marginal rise in daily infections as 17 new cases were reported in the State during the last 24 hours compared to 12 on the previous day. Seven new cases were reported from Khurda, two in Cuttack, five in Gajapati and one in Nayagarh.
Besides, there were two cases from the state pool. With the cases being detected from 15,103 samples, the daily test positivity rate (TPR) on the day remained 0.11 per cent. Officials said the new cases pushed State's active case tally to 131.
Besides, there has also been no major cluster outbreak since the detection of 64 COVID cases in two school hostels in Rayagada last week, they said.