Team Herald
PANJIM: A large number of gutka packets, plastic bottles and fishing nets were recovered by participants of a beach clean-up drive at Colva and Calangute beaches undertaken on Sunday as a part of India’s G20 Presidency.
The drive was organised by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Union Ministry of Earth Sciences, Department of Environment and Climate Change, Goa State Biodiversity Board and Goa State Climate Change cell.
Speaking to media persons, the State Environment Secretary Arun Kumar Mishra said gutka sachets were among the litter found at the beaches. “I will issue instructions that either these sachets be processed or we will take legal remedies (against these product sellers),” he said.
Mishra said the state government will certainly take measures to control this.
Speaking about the central government’s initiative, Mishra said in 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi made this as an agenda, nobody could believe that cleanliness could be an agenda.
“But, it is established that cleanliness is an important agenda for the country,” he added.
Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry Director Dharmendra Kumar Gupta, who was personally present to oversee the drive at the Colva beach Goa, said, “During garbage collection, we saw there are lot of plastic bottles and plastic fishing nets on the beach.”
