Batpady beach and approach road almost devastated by sea erosion

Crores spent on ADB-funded beach rejuvenation project washed away

The verdant Batpady beach, on the southern tip of Karnataka bordering Kerala, and its connecting fisheries road from Someshwara have almost been washed away, with hundreds of crores of rupees spent on the beach rejuvenation project going down the drain.

While the fisheries road was completely damaged last monsoon, it was temporarily restored this February. A massive sand wall of about 300 metres length too was built in Batpady to offer protection to the temporary road. Within a month of the monsoon, the sand wall washed away and in another month, the temporary road too. When The Hindu visited the beach on Saturday, even the endpoint, as called by the local people, which is about 500 metres before the State border, too was almost affected by the sea erosion. About 500 metres long and 300 metres wide beachfront in this region was seen swallowed by the raging waves with a small building structure built by a government department for tourist facilities precariously standing amid the threat of waves.

The tall sand dune from Batpady to Kanva Tirtha in Kerala, about three kilometre in length and 300 metres in width, was broken by the waves near the endpoint itself allowing the three rivulet s — Uchchila, Talapady and Kunjathur — to join the sea at this point. Normally, the massive dune prevented these rivulets from joining the sea thereby forming a beautiful backwater lake.