Yesterday, a lovely Sunday morning, I was looking forward to a meet up with a bunch of friends at Coco Beach in Nerul. The scenery was lovely as it always is in our beautiful Goa. But as I was walking along the beach, I was aghast to note piles and piles of human excreta all along the shore line at the high tide line. The sand was black, and full of petroleum tar. I had hoped for a nice dip in the ocean, but the sight of the beach, filled as it was with regurgitated garbage not only made for a traumatic experience, but also filled me with anger and shame – which has prompted me to write this to you.
Sir! We in Goa have been gifted, free of cost, a scenic coastline and great natural beauty. We are building a whole tourism industry riding on the back of this great and valuable resource. Surely, the least we can do is to treat this gift with the respect and consideration it deserves?
How on earth can we invite guests to our beautiful land only to have them witness our shameless and thoughtless way of living? How can we pride ourselves on ‘modern’ infrastructure when we cannot provide proper sanitation facilities to our citizenry? If we have the resources and the mind power to send rockets to the moon and the sun, surely we can harness that same mind power to install mechanisms in place to keep our surroundings and environment clean and green with at least a modicum of cleanliness and tidiness. How can we be proud of our beaches in their current state? Whatever happened to the “End Open Defecation Scheme” started by the government some years ago?
I trust you will treat this issue with the gravity it deserves and work with the respective local governing bodies and concerned departments to put measures in place so we can once again enjoy our beaches and be proud to call ourselves a citizenry of a developed State in India.
In anticipation,
