Sagar Island, on the southern fringe of West Bengal where the iconic Gangasagar Mela takes place every January, has turned into a literal instance of climate change.
Triggered by climate change, the rising sea has reached within 450 metres of the Kapil Muni Temple. It now takes barely a five-minute walk to reach the Bay of Bengal from the iconic temple.
The ocean has carved out half of the beach in front of the temple and pushed the area for holy dips to two extremes, about one km apart.
This will affect the forthcoming Gangasagar Mela that is expected to draw close to 10 million devotees, West Bengal Sundarbans minister and local member of the legislative assembly Bankim Hazra recently told this correspondent.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published a report last April that showed the sea level of the Bay of Bengal had risen nearly 30 per cent higher in the past three decades, compared to the global average. It was second only to the western tropical Pacific region.
Diamond Harbour in West Bengal, located at the mouth of the Hooghly river, recorded the maximum sea level increase over the last four to five decades in India. The Union Ministry of Earth Sciences tabled the data in the Lok Sabha in 2019.
Diamond Harbour is just 70 kilometres from Sagar Island, which is located within the Bay of Bengal.
Government studies showed that sea level rise in the country was estimated to be 1.3 millimetres (mm) per year along India’s coasts during the last 40-50 years. At Diamond Harbour though, the rise was close to five times higher at 5.16 mm per year. Since then, it has risen even more, confirmed oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor from Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
“This year, the beach areas 2, 3, 4 are not usable for holy dips and only 1, 5 and 6 are to be used. We could use the beach 4 area as recently as last year,” Bankim Hazra told this correspondent.
“The situation has come to such a pass that even the traditional Ganga Aarti area has gone, and we are trying to set up a new area for the Aarti. I do not know how long the temple will survive in its present place if some urgent actions aren’t taken,” pointed out the minister. Incidentally, according to local sources, the temple has already shifted a few times in the past.
“The sea is surging rapidly. Within a few years, it must have progressed close to 100 metres,” said a local who has a shop on the road leading from the temple to the sea.
“The state government spends close to Rs 300 crore for organising the Gangasagar Mela and is trying its best to protect the beach in front of the temple. But the Centre is doing nothing despite promises made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah before the last election,” alleged the minister, adding that IIT Chennai’s proposal for sea bank protection could not be taken forward in the absence of the Centre’s support.
According to sources, the work will require close to Rs 270 crore according to the detailed project report (DPR). The Mamata Banerjee government is trying to scout for funds from several sources including the World Bank that has, in principle, agreed to support the Sundarbans’ vulnerable islands. The Bengal cabinet has agreed to the Bank proposal and presently the ball is in court of the Centre, the sources added.
Independent experts however point fingers to the ‘development’ that has been undertaken on the Gangasagar beach in the last few decades. “Since the last two decades, Gangasagar has witnessed a plethora of development works that have completely eroded the sand dunes on the beach. These were natural barriers to erosion. Faulty planning has actually piggybacked the climatic impacts. These development works have got further fillip since the present government came to power,” said an expert, pointing out to the hundreds of constructions that have come up around the temple area in the recent past.
Local officials admitted that pushing the holy dip area to two extremes would create difficulties for both pilgrims as well as the administration. “Last year, we had about 12 million pilgrims and this year, the number is expected to be the same or more … all these people, after the holy dip, will have to walk beside the beach to reach the temple to offer puja. They will be inconvenienced,” pointed out a senior official.
The area almost looked like a war zone, with tell-tale devastation all around. The administration has been relentlessly filling up the affected area with earth in order to create a path for devotees during the Mela.
“It’s a fact that the sea is behaving erratically at Sagar. I have visited the area and will visit again before the Mela; we are trying our best to find a sustainable solution,” stated state irrigation minister Manas Bhuiya to this correspondent recently.
A study titled Vulnerability and Risk Assessment to Climate Change in Sagar Island, India, carried out by Aparna Bera and others, found that, “Sagar Island, the largest inhabited estuarine island of Sundarbans, is experiencing severe coastal erosion, frequent cyclones, flooding, storm surges, and breaching of embankments, resulting in land, livelihood, and property loss, and the displacement of people at a huge scale.”
The study, based on an integrated geostatistical and geoinformatics-based approach considering 26 parameters, found that “19.5% of mouzas (administrative units of the island), with 15.33% of the population at the southern part of the island, i.e., Sibpur–Dhablat, Bankimnagar–Sumatinagar, and Beguakhali–Mahismari, are at high risk (0.70–0.80)”.
Another study was carried out by academicians Sunondo Bandapadhyay and Chinmoyee Mallik. It was based upon fieldwork on Sagar Island and comprised 240 households. The duo published a paper earlier this year where they pointed out that embankments have been able to contain coastal flooding and coastal erosion only with limited success.
“Instead, they have interfered with the coastal processes by altering the sediment load dynamics, reduction in channel capacity, increasing the tidal amplitude, and have exacerbated the environmental crisis,” reads the research paper.
“The resettlement strategy has accommodated the displaced communities, but in the long run the economic as well as the environmental outcomes have clear indications of maladaptive practices (and) it has deteriorated the livelihoods of the relocated communities,” further added the paper.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee also recently complained about the lack of central government funding for the Gangasagar Mela even as it supports the Kumbh Mela. “We have repeatedly requested the Union government to announce the Gangasagar Mela as a national one, but they did not ... We will again raise the demand,” said Banerjee while speaking to the media.