VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

OUR SEA IS DYING! While we deal with issues percieved as priority, our greatest asset, our beloved sea, is DYING. We are killing it ourselves. Please read the attached Marine Health news report n the Times of India today. Vizagites, if we want to save our sea we must take up the issue with our administration. We must turn away from the inane subjects that distract us and turn our  focus on the more important issues. One of them is the damage we are doing to our sea.

STOP DESTROYING OUR BEACH https://youtu.be/RU8I2rIFLh4 CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE TO FIND OUT HOW VISAKHA UTSAV DAMAGES OUR BEACH AND SEA If we keep quiet we will lose the beauty of our beach and the Temporary leaders and bureaucrats don't give a damn about our real Vizag. Vizagites, please share this message. Let the authorities know that the destruction of our natural assets will not be tolerated anymore. Everything is not empty show business and commerce. Stop the madness now.

  E very year in an extraordinary expression of faith Vizag witnesses this holy occasion usually on the road around the Simachalam hill. Lakhs of men women and children participate. Unfortunately this event contributes the highest volume of plastic in a single day to Vizag's environment. Well meaning organisations supply water sachets all along the way without bothering to put collection bins for used sachets. Within hours of the event's start the entire 32 km stretch is covered with plastic sachets requiring an army of workers to clean up afterwards straining our municipal corporation. With 3L people doing the Pradakshana and each person consuming 4-6 packets of water, and many washing their heads and faces with this water, more than 15 lakh or 1.5 million or more sachets line the route.  Seeing this is a shocking site. If Cleanliness is next to Godliness this does not demonstrate it. As Vizag's recycling system is not streamlined all these sachets end u...

VIZAG'S BLACK NIGHTMARE Talk to anyone in Vizag and the single most irritating thing about living here is the ubiquitous coal dust pollution. This fine black powdery substance rises silently, like a ghost, from the port area and spreads its dark tentacles all over our city. It affects all of Vizag, from the densely populated old town in the South to the upmarket areas in the North of Vizag. As homes are swept each morning one can see the black powder accumulating on the floor at the end of the broom and our laundry on the clothes line is streaked brown by the time it dries. It settles on our cars and bikes and on our skin as we drive near the port area. Much of this pernicious dust gives us itchy eyes, allergic sniffles and most seriously finds its way into our lungs making us susceptible to respiratory infection and worse. Historic problem Vizag’s citizens have suffered due to this dirty cargo for years, they have complained, protested, objected, opposed, moaned, groane...

Either click on the Times of India link or read the document pasted below. Do share your views and comments. Festival Fiasco - the down side of festivals in Vizag Festival fiasco Sohan Hatangadi Appeared 6 September 2015 Vizagites have been traditionally celebrating festivals such as Sankaranthi, Shiva Ratri, Vinayaka Chatruthi for several years with great enthusiasm. Festivals are a time for rejoicing and connecting with our roots. We have a cosmopolitan population and it is natural that certain festivals like Holi, Deepavali and Durga Puja normally ethnic to communities from different parts of India have been adapted by locals and gained in popularity in recent years. With cultural diversity festival traditions pass on from one community to another and in the process the way the festival is celebrated goes through change giving it a local flavor and relevance. Private limited to public unlimited In Vizag’s earlier years a few well organized functions would ca...

V izagites have a love affair with plastic and it’s not only on Valentine Day. Look around and see the ubiquitous water bottles, water sachets, milk sachets, plastic bags, tea cups, and Styrofoam plates. Plastics are in mounds everywhere, from Akkayapalem to Andhra University, from Dabagardens to Dwarakanagar, from RK beach to Railway Station, from Gajuwaka to Gopalpatnam. They lie in heaps - at the tiffin, tea and panipoori shops, stuffed into Vizag’s drains and geddas, strewn across our once pristine beaches, at RTC bus stands, alongside our roads and rail tracks, on every empty plot of land and at temples where prasadam and offerings are made accompanied by some sort of plastic. In fact our beaches today still shows the ravages of the recent Shiva Rathri when lakhs bathed themselves in our sacred bay. The trouble with plastics Plastics are a headache to get rid of. They are not soluble in water and they just do not decompose or deteriorate easily. So every time we throw a...

Please first read this news item which appeared today 3 Dec, by clicking on this link: Vizag to become major hub for port activity Vizag Port Trust's Magic Trick Great magicians are experts in diversion. Accompanied by drum rolls, they direct your attention to something exciting and as you watch they perform their tricks behind smoke screens and curtains. This is what the port trust seems to be doing in Vizag. After years of complaints regarding pollution they say that they are cleaning up their act by installing a few mechanical coal handlers in the outer harbour. They hand out press notes and make statements saying that all the coal dust problems are solved. No one asks them and they don't want to say about where the coal is being stored! The major problem has been their archaic storage yards from where coal dust spreads all over the old city and sometimes all the way to Chinna Waltair and Gnyanapuram. What do they plan to do about that? North and West migra...

Expansion of ports - news reports In recent months, and as recently as last week, there have been news items in the press about the expansion of Vizag and Gangavaram ports. Reading these reports makes me feel like a prisoner being sent to the gas chamber! Please read these news items: 1. "Gangavaram Port in expansion mode". http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Visakhapatnam/article3348360.ece 2. "Gangavaram port expansion set to take off; funds tied up" http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/logistics/article3473764.ece?ref=wl_industry-and-economy VPT - The emperor of pollution  Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) is the most notorious polluter of Vizag. The sea water in the port area which was full of marine life, now thanks to the oil, coal, ore, sulfur and  pollution supports no life at all. Their Coal and Iron Ore Dust spreads all over the city. From Soldierpeta to Gyanapuram. From Kotaveedhi to Suryabagh. From Jalaripeta to ...

My Vizag’s Beach View from our beach home balcony in 1960.  Then an outer harbor Iron Ore jetty came up on the beach. A large wall blocked off the beach for the residents. Half a century ago, as a child I lived in an old stone building by the sea. So close in fact that, in stormy weather, the crashing waves sent a salty spray into our home. Ah the smell of the sea! The constant crashing of the waves! So subliminally deep was it driven into my psyche that, even when I went inland on vacation, I could still smell and hear it. On these sparkling waves and golden beaches we first learn to swim. All through summer vacation the neighbourhood boys frolicked among the waves. At dusk, we came home reluctantly, only when we were exhausted or when mom came looking for us, threatening dire consequences if we did not drag our salty black bodies back home. Here, I cast my catgut line with a bottle cork for a float and steel nut for weight, and caught my first sna...