VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

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 l...

CRZ is a much misunderstood law. Read this article to get an overview of the subject from Vizag's perspective. Just click this link. CRZ story: Battle to save coast The story as it appeared in the newspaper: In word document: CRZ story: Battle to save coast Sohan Hatangadi Dated: 23 April 2015 To appreciate the philosophy of CRZ let’s go back a few decades. When we were kids most of us lived in Vizag’s “Old Town” near Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT), we lived within a few hundred yards of the beach, and played on the beach and swam in the sea whenever we could. Hundreds of catamarans, boats made with just two pieces of wood, would sail out every morning with their white sails dotting the clear blue sea and come back every afternoon laden with fish. Some fishermen would spread their nets from the beach and haul in a bounty of assorted crabs, prawns and fish that would leap in the nets as they came ashore, sparkling in the sun like stainless steel springs. Some ...