Puri Hosts World’s Biggest Beach Cleaning Drive

Puri Hosts World’s Biggest Beach Cleaning Drive

Over 10,000 volunteers took part in the world’s biggest beach clean-up drive, named ‘Mo Beach’, along the Puri coastline on the occasion of International Coastal Clean-up Day on Saturday.

The massive clean-up operation was part of an initiative introduced by the Puri district administration in July to keep the seacoast clean, tidy and beautiful.

As per the district administration’s appeal, intellectuals, environmentalists, hoteliers, tourists, local communities, civil society organizations, volunteers and gram panchayats took part in the clean-up exercise along the 70-km odd coastline in Puri.

Prominently, the cleaning drive, which started around 6 am, was conducted at the beaches at Chandrabhaga, Balighai, Ramchandi, Astaranga, Baliharchandi and Rajhans.

Puri District Collector Balwant Singh said, “Puri district has about 140-km-long sea beaches. Today on the occasion of coastal cleaning day, I am happy that so many people joined us. There is always a manmade reason behind natural disasters like Cyclone Fani. So people should come out to address these reasons. This will be the message to the world from Puri on this occasion.”

Renowned sand artist and Padma Shri recipient Sudarsan Pattnaik has been appointed as the brand ambassador of the initiative. Expressing his support towards the drive, Pattnaik created a beautiful sand art on Saturday morning to symbolise plastic ban on the beach. He had taken another such initiative on Thursday morning.

The places chosen for the Mo Beach event included 10 spots in Puri municipality, 10 in Konark NAC and 80 locations at Astaranga, Brahmagiri, Gop and Krushnaprasad. The district administration engaged 10 nodal officers to oversee the exercise in Puri and Konark, while the BDOs of Astaranga, Brahmagiri, Gop and Krushnaprasad were deployed to look after the locations identified in their jurisdictions.

Along with the district administration, this campaign is being sponsored by ICZMP under the state government’s Forest and Environment Department, Tourist Department along with Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), Odisha Pollution Control Board (OPCB) and Bharat Scouts and Guides.

Joining in the drive to motivate people, Bollywood actor Vidyut Jammwal said, “Beaches have played an important role in my personal life as I have learned all the things like acrobatics, gymnastics and martial art by practising on beaches. So yes, we all have to take care of our beaches. We have to keep them clean so that they will stay beautiful and calm.”

Bollywood actor, director and producer Nandita Das said, “This is a very good initiative. Climate change is affecting our lives. And these are happening due to our irresponsibility only. From the name ‘Mo Beach’, we should feel it like our own thing and take care of it. I am glad of being a part of this drive.”

Among others, Odisha Forest and Environment Minister Bikram Keshari Arukha, IAS Commissioner-cum-Secretary Tourism Department Vishal Kumar Dev and Puri MLA Jayanta Kumar Sarangi were present at the event.