NEW DELHI: Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Earth Sciences, Government of India on Tuesday, August 2, interacted with 46 Deputy Commissioners and District Magistrate of 9 coastal states to review the progress of the 75-day Coastal CleanUp campaign and has asked them to provide assistance in the ongoing mass campaign. The campaign is an initiative of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, and it includes all the concerned Central Ministries, State Governments and Civil Society Organisation.
“Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar” is one of the longest beach clean-up campaigns in the world that has already captivated the imagination of the masses.
The Minister asked the Deputy Commissioners and District Collectors to involve non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Civil Society Organisations, Children and Youth Forums, corporates, and Municipal Corporations of the concerned coastal states of India.
He informed the gathering that the 75-day CleanUp campaign, launched on July 5, by the Ministry of Earth Science, Government of India, will culminate on September 17, the birth anniversary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which will be celebrated as “Sewa Divas” in the country. A mass clean-up drive will be organised at 75 beaches in the country on this occasion. For this purpose, 75 volunteers will be assigned for one kilometre of coastline. The clean-up drive aims to remove 1500 tonnes of garbage, primarily single-use plastic from the coast.
In the gathering, the Collector of south Goa was asked to operationalise the mass cleaning campaign and to formulate Goa-Model of Coastal Clean-up on the four identified beaches. Also, the Collector of Porbandar was asked to take up clean-up and other activities along the 100 km long coastline of Porbandar and Madhavpur.
Apart from that, the District Collector of Chennai has informed that the cleaning drive is already in operation along the 29 km coastline comprising of four major beaches, including the Marina beach, the largest beach in Asia.
Dr M Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Science, Government of India, and V Srinivas, Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), Government of India told the minister, that they will keep in touch with District Collectors of all the nine coastal states to further strengthen the coastal clean-up campaign.