PANJIM: Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has identified five beaches in Goa for undertaking a mass cleanliness cum awareness drive from November 11 to 17.
Morjim, Ashvem and Baga in North Goa and Benaulim and Baina in the South are the beaches selected for the drive, which will be undertaken by involving Eco-club school children along with colleges and local communities.
The cleaning of the beaches comes at a time when a report by MoEF&CC and Society of Integrated Coastal Management (SICOM) revealed that with 205.75 g/m2 the Goa coast has the highest quantity of beach debris and so also plastic 25.47g/m2 amongst all coastal States in India.
In an office memorandum issued to the State government, Ministry joint Secretary Arvind Nautiyal said that funds amounting to Rs 5.5 lakhs tentatively per beach would be provided to the State for facilitating the week-long intensive cleanliness drive.
The State has to identify a one-kilometre-stretch on the selected beach for cleaning activities, which would be done in a convenient duration of two-hours on daily basis during the week. A minimum of 200 participants, along with ten cleaning staff on contract will participate in this.
The collected waste has to be processed as per the current Waste Management Rules.
The Ministry has appointed its own nodal officer for each beach, who would be responsible for reporting the progress of the drive on a regular basis.
Apart from Goa, nine other States and Union territories will be covered under the campaign that include Gujarat, Daman and Diu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
The Ministry in its recent report said that Coastal litters impacts in multiple ways; but most importantly they degrade the quality and health of the country’s ocean and also damage coastal and marine habitants and harm marine biota.
