Addu City Council on Monday, 15th May, announced that the physical works for the city’s mega-scale land reclamation project will begin in June.
The council said this, via a Facebook post, noting that the majority of the boundary wall installation for the planned reclamation zones has been completed. It added that the installation of the dredger pipelines in the zones is currently ongoing.
“Physical works of dredging and land reclamation will commence in June”, the council said.
The project was awarded to Netherlands’ Van Oord, and the company had already mobilized machinery and equipment to the project site in December 2022.
Under the mega-scale land reclamation project, a total of 194.3 hectares of land area will be reclaimed. The project is executed through a USD 800 million line of credit from the EXIM Bank of India.
- Shore protection on 11 kilometers of the reclaimed area
- 90 hectares of land to be reclaimed from Hithadhoo
- 23.3 hectares of land to reclaimed from Hulhumeedhoo with additional of five hectares of two lands will be reclaimed from the lagoon for tourism purposes
- 76 hectares of land from Maradhoo/Maradhoofeydhoo, along with three islands of 8.3 hectares and two islands of 3.3 hectares will be reclaimed from the lagoon for tourism purposes
- Project Cost: MVR 1.3 billion
- Project Completion: 1 year and 6 months
While the project is scheduled to commence in June, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier raised concerns over the severe environmental impact due to the initiative. Despite the protests of various pro-environment associations urging to cease the project, the government has refused and said they will go forward with it.