Paradip, April 20: Residents of the erosion-hit villages in Odisha’s Kendrapara district have begun abandoning their ancestral land.

With the sea turning restive and steadily moving towards the human settlements, panicky residents have started leaving Satabhaya and Kanhupur villages in Rajnagar tehsil.

“The sea is crawling menacingly towards places of habitation almost every day. People are scared and perturbed. They are leaving their vulnerable homes. Over 50 families have left the village,” said sarpanch of Satabhaya gram panchayat Nigamananda Rout.

The retreating villagers have preferred the safety of Okilopapa, a village 8km away from Satabhaya.

“At present, all of us are literally living on the edge. The threat of the sea’s deadly strike persists all the time. Villagers are scared as the intensity of sea erosion is quite pronounced these days,” he said.

Though the district administration had officially announced that the affected families would be relocated to a resettlement colony at Bagapatia by March 31, nothing has been done yet.

The Odisha government has faced innumerable anti-displacement movements in various districts.

The decision to relocate the 571 families living at the vulnerable coastal villages was taken in 2008 at a high-level meeting chaired by chief minister Naveen Patnaik. The proposed project in Kendrapara is incidentally Odisha’s first-ever rehabilitation and resettlement project for people displaced by sea erosion.

The majority of the retreating villagers are settling down at Magarakanda, 5km off Satabhaya coast. Besides Okilapala, Barahipur, Balisahi have become favoured destinations of the displaced persons.

“Kanhupur village now wears a deserted look. The sea has eaten two-thirds of the village. Barring two or three families, all have left the place. I left the village earlier this year as it was no more safer to live,” said Pushalata Swain, a resident of Kanhupur village.

“The government is insensitive to our plight. It is playing a cruel joke on us. For over a decade, we have been waiting for the rehabilitation colony to come up. As election is drawing closer, the politicians would rake up resettlement issues again,” said Niranjan Swain, a resident of Satabhaya village.

“Plan to rehabilitate the affected families in Satabhayaya gram panchayat stays on top of our agenda. For multiplicity of factors beyond our control, the resettlement colony for the displaced people got delayed. The land acquisition process for the colony has ended. Work for construction of roads, pucca houses and filling up of low-lying portion of the proposed colony would get under way shortly,” said Kendrapara additional district magistrate Ashok Kumar Panda.