Say goodbye to our beaches
Appeared in Times of India Vizag Edition on 03 April 2017
Vizag is a coastal city and the best part of living in a place
like this is access to our beautiful beaches. We take for granted our right to
walk on to the beach sand and wade in the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Do we
need permission to visit the beach? Do we have to buy a ticket to enjoy the
sea? Obviously not! That is because the sea is our common property and a public
place that we can visit any time we want to. But is this going to change soon? Old
timers will recollect the beaches of old Vizag with nostalgia. Most of the
Vizagites lived in the “Old Town” near Visakhapatnam Port Trust channel.
Families lived within a few hundred yards of the beach, and children played on
the beach and swam in the sea whenever they could. Hundreds of fishing boats
lined the beach and fishermen went fishing every day to bring in a bounty of
fish that they sold at the beach or in the markets making a decent living. The
beach and the sea belonged to all of us and we took the boon for granted.
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| Wall on right blocks off our beach |
By bye my beach
But then something happened that changed that part of town for
ever. In the seventies the outer harbor was built; a high wall several
kilometers long came up along that beach to secure the facilities. Soon after
the outer harbour wall was constructed the fishing harbour was also shifted to
the north of the harbour and soon every bit of the beach in that part of town
was inaccessible to folks like you and I. That happened when the Visakhapatnam
Port Trust was lord of all it surveyed. Will we have a new set of lords in the
new part of town? Will we lose our beaches again? Well it depends, if we think
that environmental laws are silly things and have no relevance for us we are walking
into trouble with our eyes wide open. This brings us to that much misunderstood
regulation called CRZ.
The CRZ basics
The Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) is a notification under the
Environmental Protection Act of the Government of India meant to protect our
coasts from harm. The main objectives of the Coastal Regulation Zone
Notification, 2011 are to ensure livelihood security to the fishing communities
and other local communities living in the coastal areas; to conserve and
protect coastal stretches and to promote development in a sustainable manner. Considering
that 14% of our population resides in the coastal districts of India and that
our mainland has a huge 5,500 kilometer coastline, the law is immensely
important. First mooted by Indira Gandhi in 1981 this notification took nearly
30 years and some of the best brains in the world and plenty of civic debate to
arrive at its present form in 2011. So despite what we may think the CRZ laws
have not been pulled out of a hat overnight, it is a deeply considered
document.
Demystifying CRZ
Zones
We often hear the terms CRZ-I, CRZ II, CRZ III and so on. These
are zones with different characteristics. We wonder where these zones are in
relation to our coast. Unfortunately owing to the lack of information or maps
from VUDA indicating which area of Vizag comes under which CRZ category, we
have to do some guesswork. Here is a brief introduction to CRZ categories:
CRZ-I refers
to the areas that are ecologically sensitive features which play a role in the
maintaining the integrity of the coast. For example areas rich with Mangroves,
Sand Dunes, Salt Marshes; Turtle nesting grounds; Nesting grounds of birds and areas
with archaeological importance and heritage sites. We imagine that several
parts of our beach between Vizag and Bheemunipatnam and to the South of
Dolphin’s nose would come under this description. But the government may think
different.
CRZ-II refers to the areas that have been
developed up to or close to the shoreline within existing municipal limits in urban
areas which are substantially built-up and has been provided with drainage and
approach roads and other infrastructural facilities, such as water supply and
sewerage mains. Typically this will be
our RK Beach to say Lawson’s Bay colony.
CRZ-III refers to relatively undisturbed areas
generally in the rural areas and also areas within municipal limits or in urban
areas, which are not substantially built up. This area will typically be the stretch
of our beach from the zoo to Rushikonda.
CRZ IV refers to the water area from the Low
Tide Line to twelve nautical miles on the seaward side. Vizag’s coastal water area is awash with pollutants but that is
another story.
To learn more about CRZ go to this website http://www.moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/CRZ-Notification-2011.pdf
Resorts and hotels
taking my beach
In view of the importance of the tourism industry the Ministry of
Environment and Forests (MoE&F) introduced a set of guidelines as annexure
III to the notification. It gave the guidelines under which Beach Resorts and
Hotels could be allowed provided a set of stringent conditions were met and
only by getting prior approval from MoE&F. Two of the most important conditions concerning
public access to the beach read as follows:
1. Live
fencing and barbed wire fencing with vegetative cover may be allowed around
private properties subject to the condition that such fencing shall in no way
hamper public access to the beach
2. To
allow public access to the beach, at least a gap of 20metres width shall be
provided between any two hotels or beach resorts; and in no case shall gaps be
less than 500metres apart
Whose beach is it
anyway?
In recent years we are beginning to see private projects occupying
large sections of the seaward side of the beach road. Especially the portions
of beach starting from what used to Karthik Vanam all the way past Rushikonda,
Sai Priya Resorts and beyond. As we drive along that stretch of beach road it
is clear that the entire beachfront is being given away either on lease or
outright purchase to private business. Much of these properties are only
covered by a thin veil of legality. In fact if the CRZ laws were applied in its
true spirit these buildings would not be allowed to come up here at all.
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| Walls stopping us from our beach in Rushikonda |
Beaches out of
bounds
Most alarming is the fact that these properties are coming up
cheek to jowl along the beach road without allowing any access to fisher folk who
had traditional access to the sea from anywhere and to ordinary people like us.
By the time our children or grandchildren grow up they will need to check into
one of these properties to visit the beach. Make sure you leave a large
inheritance for them. So what used to be free for thousands of years will now
cost them money. Alternatively we can come back to RK beach and squeeze our way
past millions of visitors to get a glimpse of our beach and sea. What happens
if a rich Chinese company comes along and buys up the entire RK beach stretch?
Where do we go then?
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