Clean Up Drive at Puri Beach

On Saturday, Odisha will witness its biggest ever beach clean-up exercise at Puri. The district administration plans to mobilize over 5,000 volunteers at 100 locations along the coast for the beach cleaning drive.

“We will organise the mega clean-up drive on the occasion of international coastal clean-up day on September 21. The exercise will be carried out under the banner of our ‘Mo Beach’ cleaning initiative,” Puri district collector Balwant Singh told TOI. The district administration launched ‘Mo Beach’ (my beach) cleaning drive in June to keep the shoreline clean and beautiful. Singh said since the state government announced a number of projects to convert Puri into a world heritage city, cleanliness of the beach would also attract more tourists.

The district administration has appealed to intellectuals, environmentalists, hoteliers, tourists, local communities, civil society organisations, volunteers and gram panchayats (under whose jurisdictions the beaches are located) to take part in the clean-up exercise along the 70-km-odd coastline in Puri district on Saturday. Some of the prominent beaches where the massive coastal cleaning drive will be conducted are Puri town, Chandrabhaga (Konark), Balighai, Ramchandi, Astaranga, Baliharchandi and Rajhans. The cleaning work will continue for two hours from 6 am.

Singh said the district administration will also organise events at beaches to spread the message about the state government’s effective handling of events following Fani. “We will send a message to tourists that Puri fought Cyclone Fani in May and returned to normalcy. Damaged infrastructure has been restored due to the state government’s resolve and success at leading the fast recovery from Fani’s devastating impact,” Singh said.

Internationally-acclaimed sand artist Sudarsan Patnaik created a sand art on the beach on Wednesday and appealed to people from all walks of life to participate in Saturday’s beach clean-up exercise. “We should support the Puri district administration’s novel initiative to keep our beach and environment clean,” Sudarsan said.

The Puri district administration’s ‘Mo Beach’ exercise has turned into a people’s movement with students, tourists, vendors, government officials and NGO volunteers cleaning the beaches in Puri district every Tuesday. Puri, which is home to a number of pristine beaches in eastern India, attracts over 60 lakh tourists a year. The beaches that used to be littered with garbage are now clean due to the sustained cleaning drive under the ‘Mo Beach’ initiative, a hotelier said.