A man wades through tidal waters at Talchua village. Telegraph picture

Kendrapara, Aug. 19: Tidal waves have made its way into a couple of coastal gram panchayats of this district inundating farmland.

The waves crossed the weak saline embankments at strategic sluice gates flooding crop areas of Talchua and Rangani gram panchayats. The waves enter the villages mainly through the Shikarpahi sluice gate that has been reportedly in bad shape following non-maintenance.

Sources said over 200 hectares of farmland had been salinised with tidal waves making inroads while spilling over the saline embankment buffer erected about 80ft from the sea coast. Crop fields at Takayatnagar, Shailendrapur, Baghmari, Harinapokhari and Amaravati villages had come under watery submergence since Thursday evening.

Block development officer Brahmananda Behera, however, said: “Crop fields have not been badly affected following tidal water ingress. The water level has considerably receded. Damage would have been caused had the water remained stagnant for a day or two. Moreover, the paddy crops that are grown here are saline resistant.” The saline embankment division engineers had been asked to undertake repair and maintenance work of weak embankments and sluice gates, Behera said.

“A minor crack on the Shikarpahi sluice gate had led to the ingress of tidal waves. However, that has been repaired. There is no further possibility of saline ingress from that particular point. We have identified some other vulnerable breach-prone points. Measures to repair the enfeebled points have been undertaken on a war-footing,” said Jugal Kishore Tripathy, executive engineer of the saline embankment division.

“The 32km long saline embankment, built during the 70s to protect the coastal villages in Rajnagar, is in a bad shape. Funds sanctioned for refurbishment of the embankment in the aftermath of the 1999 super cyclone and the proceeding years have mostly been misused. As a result, the coastal villages are still exposed to the vagaries of nature,” said Jagabandhu Nayak, former chairman of the Rajnagar Panchayat Samity.