By GreentechLead Team: The Integrated Coastal Zone
Management (ICZM) project, aiming to provide solution for better management of
Gujarat’s coastal zone, is expected to be completed by 2015. The project is
expected to make positive impact in the lives about twenty million people
live along the 1,600-km-long coastline in Gujarat.
The project covers coastal districts of Jamnagar and
Kutch and parts of Rajkot, which have been designated as ecologically sensitive
areas (ESAs). World Bank has financed 60 percent of funds, the Centre and the
State governments have provided 30 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
According to the Hindu Business Line,The
pilot project targeted to improve Jamnagar’s underground sewage network and
will set up a water treatment plant of 71 million litres a day (MLD). The
project will also improve water quality through discharge of treated water and
provide proper sanitation for more than five lakh population of the coastal
area off the Gulf of Kutch.
Under the project, coral transplantation will be taken up
in an area of 2,000 sq km, and mangrove plantation in 15,000 hectares,
establishment of the Rs 100-crore sewage treatment plant in Jamnagar,
eco-tourism development in the Gulf of Kutch, and setting up of a
national-level institute for marine biodiversity.
The pilot project is being implemented by Gujarat Ecology
Commission (GEC), the State Project Management Unit (SPMU). The three pilot
projects launched along with similar ones in West Bengal and Odisha together
involve an outlay of nearly Rs 8300 million, would later be expanded to include
all nine coastal states in India.