10 Indian beaches including one in Udupi to be converted into global quality

coastaldigest.com news network
January 29, 2018

Udupi, Jan 29: The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change plans to convert India’s 10 popular sea beaches into international quality Blue Flag destination in 2018 to ensure cleanliness and safety of these beaches. Among the 10 beaches, Padukere Beach located near Malpe in Karnataka’s Udupi district has been listed on the Blue Flag list.

Welcoming the move, Karnataka tourism Director Manjula said that her department already had listed Padukere beach as it fits into most of 33 categories listed by the ministry to select.

All the coastal states have nominated the pilot beaches. Formal nominations are, however, awaited from Union territories like Daman and Diu, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar islands. Sources said that Andaman would be the only place from where two beaches might be selected for the Blue Flag certification.

These ten beaches are being taken up as demonstration projects. Once they are cleaned up, 90 more beaches would be turned into Blue Flag zones.

The Blue Flag is a certification by the Foundation for Environmental Education to ensure following a set of stringent standards to clean up the popular seaside destinations.

None of the Indian beaches carry this certification, while Spain has 578 Blue Flag beaches. Other countries with a large number of Blue Flag beaches are Turkey (436), Greece (395), Italy (342) and Portugal (299).

The developmental activities along the beach would include the creation of toilets and proper management of the waste material generated by tourists.

According to the existing Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) regulations, developmental activities are permitted in CRZ-2 (urban) and CRZ-3 (rural) areas. However, construction is prohibited in the CRZ-1 areas, which is they are between the high tide line and low tide line along the 7,500 km coastline.

International tourists

Pramod Madhwaraj, Karnataka Minister for Fisheries, Youth Empowerment and Sports, and Udupi district in-charge said that getting the certification would help in attracting international tourists to the beach.

An amount of Rs. 69 lakh had been spent to improve the road connectivity to Padukere. The construction of toilets and gazebos would be taken up at Padukere beach.

The beach facing the Arabian Sea, separated from Malpe fisheries harbour by the Udyavara rivulet, had now got road connectivity from Malpe. Hence efforts were being made to develop both the beaches.

A large number of youth in Malpe were dependent on fisheries. But tourism was a growing sector. The objective was also to create employment opportunities in the tourism sector.

The Malpe beach, the St. Mary’s Island (about 6.5 km from Malpe) and the Padukere beach along with the Sea Walkway will attract more tourists here and facilitate the development of tourism, Mr. Madhwaraj said.

Also Read: Karnataka’s first Sea Walkway opens to public at Malpe

Comments

Hari
 - 
Monday, 29 Jan 2018

What were the criterias for selecteing pilot beaches? Is that most polluted beaches? They will expand to all beaches in Karnataka?

Kumar
 - 
Monday, 29 Jan 2018

Great project. People also should cooperate to this project. Without them proper implementation wont happen

Ganesh
 - 
Monday, 29 Jan 2018

Great news. It will give more mileage to beach tourism in Karnataka

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
coastaldigest.com news network
July 24,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 24: A government doctor who was turned away by three private hospitals because he could not produce a coronavirus test result passed away today in Bengaluru. Dr Manjunath, who was a frontline COVID-19 doctor, was allegedly turned away by hospitals when he was extremely ill and struggling to breathe.

Dr Manjunath worked in the state Health and Family Welfare department and was based in Ramanagara district, around 50 km from Bengaluru.

D Randeep, a Special Officer with the Bengaluru municipal body BBMP, said that the hospitals that had refused to admit Dr Manjunath would be reported to the health department.

In June-end, Dr Manjunath went to Rajashekhar Hospital in JP Nagar, BGS Global Hospital in Kengeri and Sagar hospital in Kumaraswamy Layout. All three demanded to see his COVID-19 test result but those were still not in at the time, according to his family. His brother-in-law Nagendra is also a doctor with BBMP and in charge of allotting hospital beds, yet he was completely helpless when it came to his own relative.

He was finally admitted to Sagar hospital on June 25 when his family sat in protest on the footpath outside the Dayananda Sagar campus. He was placed on ventilator and later shifted to the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, where he died earlier today. The hospital says Dr Manjunath was discharged on July 9 because he wanted plasma therapy.

Six members of his family, including a 14-year-old, tested COVID-19 positive. Most of them have recovered.

Bengaluru has seen several cases of patients being turned away from hospitals in the city. Hospitals say they need Covid test results to know whether to admit patients in the coronavirus ICU or in the general section and to understand treatment protocol.

Mr Randeep said hospitals have been instructed to admit patients even without such a certificate. Notices have been sent to hospitals that fail to comply. The OPD of two private hospitals was sealed for 48 hours when they refused to admit a patient.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 17,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 17: The Karnataka govt has set up an exclusive helpline 104 'Arogya Sahayavani' for Coronavirus assistance to people with recent travel history to China and other affected countries, a statement said here on Monday.

According to the statement, the Karnataka Department of Family and Welfare set up the exclusive helpline 104, 'Arogya Sahayavani' on Sunday. People, who recently traveled to China and other affected countries and who have developed symptoms of Covid-19 virus are requested to immediately contact 104–Arogya Sahayavani or the health authorities and provide all necessary details in order to take precautionary measures.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the recent novel Coronavirus (COVID 2019) as an International Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Media Release
May 6,2020

Mangaluru, May 6: The Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry has urged the government to consider erstwhile undivided Dakshina Kannada (now DK & Udupi) as one unit for the purpose of movement of people. KCCI president Isaac Vas has written a letter to Karnataka chief secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar in this regard. 

Mr Vas said: Even though the erstwhile Dakshina Kannada district was bifurcated in 1997 for administration purposes, the two districts are actually an urban agglomeration with most of the population residing in suburbs/towns. Office Staff, technical crew and labour of many industries reside in either district and commute daily for work within an efficient transport system.

The present restriction on Inter-district movement in view of the Lockdown is hindering the kick starting of industries and commerce. Workers are deprived of their livelihood and Industry and business owners are finding it challenging to move forward. To add to this, the migrant labour is moving back to their native places further aggravating the situation. Many Industries and Commercial establishments have requested us to take up this matter with the government, he said.

“Hence, we kindly request you to consider these two districts as one geographical area for the movement of people and private vehicles,” he said adding that this would facilitate movement of people for employment and business in either districts of Dakshina Kannada & Udupi.

He pointed out that Bangalore Rural, Bangalore Urban, Ramanagara, Chikkaballapur and Kolar are considered as a single unit as per your order No. RD158/TNR 2020 dt 03/05/2020 (Clause 2(a)).

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.