Silvester D’Souza

Daijiworld Media Network - Kundapur (SP)

Kundapur, Aug 21: The Kody seashore cleanliness campaign undertaken under the 'Clean Kundapur' project has completed 100 successful weeks. During this period, it has grown into movement. The 100-week journey of the movement has given rise to a new sense of alacrity among the environmentalists. Buoyed and inspired by this success story, hundreds of such teams have taken roots and have pledged themselves to the cause of environmental cleanliness silently.

This cleanliness drive undertaken a few years back at eastern Kody has also made the departments take note of this work. Because of this endeavour, thousands of tourists visit Kody beach. Kody beach has undergone a sea change as a result and the awareness about environmental cleanliness has reached every home and mind. Rare types of biodiversity have got a new lease of life. Kody has won national level recognitions.  In a nutshell, Kody beach has grown phenomenally because of the silent effort made by the Clean Kundapur project.

When India celebrated its 75th Independence Day, Clean Kundapur project celebrated the occasion by organizing the 100th weekly cleanliness campaign at Kody beach. This tiny team which was created with the coming together of a few people who love the environment, has now grown into a huge tree. People from various places come here voluntarily and engage themselves in cleaning the beach.

In the year 2012, followers of Mata Amritanandamayi were undertaking this work through the Amal Bharat team. Inspired by Amal Bharat, Bharat Bangera had taken part in programmes when he was a student. The campaign initially had six to eight people who took up seashore cleanliness work at Beejady and other places. In the meanwhile, Kody got its sea walk and breakwater. Waste materials and plastic which used to get accumulated in the backwaters of sea walk became an eyesore for the beach. Taking note of this, the Clean Kundapur project decided to undertake cleanliness here once a week. In course of time, hundreds came together and worked for two hours at Kody to collect and dispose of waste. The work soon gained the size of a revolution and got publicity through social websites. The team worked patiently even though more waste gathered every week. So far, the team has accumulated over 50 tonnes of waste for disposal.

Forest, police, traffic police, coastal security force and other departments along with staff have got involved with beach cleaning programmes. Voluntary service organizations, FSL India, police, lawyers, doctors, software engineers, government officials, retired people and others take part in the drive. Gopal K Baliga, a 74-year-old retired bank officer, inspired by this, had engaged himself alone in beach cleanliness drive for a month during the coronavirus lockdown period.  Anudeep Hegde of Mann Ki Baat fame also was in this team.Yaduveer Wadiyar of Mysuru was also inspired by this and has expressed willingness to visit the place.

Every week many new people come here. Right from small children to 75-year-olds, people work here very hard. Apart from getting mental satisfaction, they work with the intention to see that others too get inspired to protect the environment.

When the project initially started, Bharat Bangera, Sachin Nakkattaya, Satyanarayana Manja, Anudeep Hegde, Aniket Shenoy, Lohit, Akshay, Shashidhar, Arun Kumar, Dr Rashmi etc were involved. Now stalwarts from different departments have joined the revolution. The project has also expanded its scope by undertaking cleaning on both sides of the highways at Agumbe ghat, Balebare ghat etc. They have also involved themselves with holding annual festivals without plastic, and cleaning of temples, schools etc and spreading awareness through painting the walls. They also get involved with blood donation camps etc and organize kite festivals at Beejady.

Clean Kundapur project does not have any official existence and it does not have president, secretary, etc. There are no finacial transactions involved andno one calls or pressurizes others to get involved. The work is  voluntary and purely out of inspiration.

After the team undertook cleanliness, the department has posted permanent staff for beach cleanliness now. After the beaches turned cleaner, turtles laid eggs and began regeneration. Kody beach has been recommended for blue flag recognition. In order to avoid seashore erosion, ecotourism is being given importance and there is plan to plant mangroves.  Already the Clean Kundapur Project is involved with the planting of saplings.

Whatever human beings throw into the sea comes back to the beach. Most of it is plastic. It can be avoided to the maximum if the people reduce use of plastics at home, and give the used plastic to local administration for disposal without fail. People coming to the beach should behave responsibly with environmental concerns. Former president of Gopady gram panchayat, Saraswati G Putran, says that a permanent solution must be found for the problem.