KOCHI: Following growing public ire against the poor upkeep of Fort Kochi beach, the Kochi corporation has decided to deploy an earthmover to clean up the beachfront regularly. The ease in lockdown relaxations has brought about an influx of visitors to the picturesque beach, causing heaps of garbage comprising hyacinths, plastic bottles and thermocols to accumulate on the beach.
Even after the cleaning drive held on October 2, officials claim the waste keeps on coming. “After the cleanup, we saw garbage accumulate in just 10 days. We were back to square one. Kochi Corporation has given a small earthmover to remove the waste daily. But it remains ineffective as large heaps of garbage are getting deposited every day” said an official of Fort Kochi Heritage Conservation Society.
The heavy rain is adding to the problems. “With the increased inflow of water from rivers in the wake of heavy rainfall, a humongous quantity of garbage is being deposited at the beachfront. Even if we clean up the whole stretch in the morning, the beach will go back to its usual state by afternoon. Though we constructed stairs to step into the beach on October 2, all of them got covered in garbage within a few hours,” added the official.
Ernakulam District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC) officials are planning to scale up the mechanism in the coming months. “We have held 22 cleaning drive since last year to address the issue to an extent. But the steady accumulation of garbage proved that the efforts need to be scaled up further. With the support of Kochi corporation, we are trying to clean up the beach daily or thrice a week. Till we find a permanent solution, we are trying to maintain the beauty of the beach to the maximum extent,” said a DTPC official.
The permanent deployment of an earthmover is expected to incur a monthly expense of around Rs 1.5 lakh. Now, the earthmover is being used to clean the beachfront near Vasco Da Gama square. “The collected waste will be segregated as bio-degradable and non-biodegradable. The latter will shift to the waste treatment plant at Brahmapuram. Degradable wastes like hyacinth are kept near the beach to use as manure,” said the official.
Demand for permanent solution
Many stakeholders in the tourism industry are calling for a permanent solution to the issue as the industry is gradually returning to normal. “The officials are trying their best to address the issue. But there needs to be a permanent solution to rid the beach of garbage. The beach has been completely lost to sea erosion. Fort Kochi beach used to have the width to play football games and now people can’t even step into it. At a time when the tourism industry is getting back on its feet, we need collective effort to address these basic issues,” said TK Faisal, a tourism facilitator.