Bhubaneswar, Oct 8 : Heritage expert Anil Dhir has opposed the construction of the country’s long rope way in Chilika Lake, the largest brackish water lagoon in Asia, under the ‘Parvatmala’ scheme.

In a statement here on Saturday, Dhir said ten ropeway projects have been envisaged by the Works Department, of which Chilika will have two – the longest 5.3 km from Prayagi Krushnaprasad Road to Kalijai temple and 3.34 km from Jhankikuda Road.
He said there will be potential impacts of the ropeway on migratory birds including the degradation of nesting and feeding habitats. There is a possibility that some groups of birds will avoid the alignment area and move to other areas of the lake, Dhir claimed.
This apart the generation of noise due to movement of the ropeway will likely affect both migratory and resident birds, the heritage expert said adding some birds may be attracted towards the
ropeway for food.
Dhir said the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change had issued a notification earlier this year exempting infrastructure of aerial ropeways from requirements of environmental clearances.
This was done after an expert committee recommended that aerial ropeways were environmentally friendly with least impact on the environment compared to roads.
The Government, he said,decided to develop Ropeways in hilly areas of the country under the Parvat Mala scheme since developing an efficient transport network is a big challenge in hilly areas with rail and air transport networks being limited.
In this backdrop, Ropeways emerged as a convenient and safe alternate transport mode .

But the two designated ropeway routes planned by the Odisha Works department on Chilka lake
are directly in the flying paths of migratory birds. As a Ramsar site, Chilika comes under the Wetland Conservation and Management Rule, 2017 and strict prohibitions for conversion for non-wetland uses apply.