Deltares bags beach nourishment project

Visakhapatnam: Deltares, an independent institute, specialising in research in water and sub-surface has been entrusted the project to arrest the beach erosion, said Chairman of Visakhapatnam Port Trust MT Krishna Babu. Deltares is preparing a design, tender estimates and technical support and the DPR is expected to be completed by January 2019.

In an official release here on Friday, Krishna Babu said that the project ‘Beach nourishment’ was taken up at a cost of Rs 40.04 crore for three consecutive years from 2015-16 to 2017-18, for filling up sand erosion at Visakhapatnam as per the suggestion of National Institute of Oceanography and Technology (NIOT).  

The Dredging Corporation of India Limited has bagged the project  and the works are in full swing, he added. The project was taken up at a cost of Rs 18.37 crore for the year 2017-18 for which DCI dredger laid the pipeline in the sea to collect and dump sand in vulnerable areas.  

The VPT carried out beach nourishment in February and March 2017 at a cost of 11.09 crore.  In the present fiscal it is estimated that about three lakh cubic metres of sand is being pumped under the beach nourishment programme, Krishna Babu said.