Its been nearly a month since the last post. The last one month had been a little busy with some anti-naxal work, but we still managed to take some time out during the weekends. Offcourse we also had our Wedding anniversary and the Valentine's day, both of them were celebrated quitely with me having to switch between office and home on both the days. Deepu was visibly upset... but it was all patched up when we spent the evening at the Palmgroove resort here on the beach . A great sunset followed by dinner on the beach side
The highlights offcourse of our outings were the Water scooter rides on Malpe beach and the ride to St Mary's island again. That was the first time that I was on the water scooter... needless to say it was a thrill of a lifetime. The adrenaline rush could actually be felt shooting up my head. The Malpe beach which is about 3 kms from home which is now a tourist paradise, was actually never all this good. Infact when we moved to Udupi in May last year, it was a real mess. With all sea weeds and waste lying all along the beach, it was never a pretty sight. There were hardly any visitors to this beach. The worst part was that the beach was just a easy place for the local fishermen to ease themselves in the morning. Accidentally it just happened once in the month of August that Deepu suggested we go to the beach for a morning walk. It was a sight we will never forget at 7 am in the morning, we literally escaped from that horrible sight on the water side. Deepu immediately suggested that I take up the matter with the Deputy Commissioner and do something about it. When you see it from a distance... the Malpe beach is one of the best beaches on this coast.
So when I took up the matter with the DC, I just discovered that I was myself a member of the Beach Development comittee. So there started the overhaul. A meeting of the Beach Development comittee was immediately called and it was decided to completely change the face of the Beach. Funds were dug up, people like the womens self help groups were enlisted, a proposal to clean up the beach was drawn and immediately we started off the mission with a session of shramdaan. The wheel was set in motion and two bulldozers kept working all day levelling the uneven weed covered beach, removing all weed and in about a weeks time we had before us a miraculously changed sparkling white sandy beach nearly 4kms in streach. The next stage was to continously keep it that clean. The Self help group women came in to the rescue who promised to clean up the daily trash in place of a small remuneration. Boards were erected prohibiting anyone from dirtying the beach, encroachments were removed and about three kilometers of beach was reclaimed, trash bins were placed and finally a musical fountain was erected in the middle of the beach, and all this in about a months time. Initially the boards were not sufficient to keep the morning easers away... so I put up some police patrolling at that hour of the morning... and all problem was solved. Even to this day I have a couple of cops patrolling the beach at 6 am everyday and its made a huge difference. Offcourse the affected persons have been provided with alternatives like construction of modern toilets (but its just so convenient to squat by the beach isn't it).
The change ?... now the weekends are just packed. People rush to the Malpe beach like there is no other place to go. So then we just introduced a fee for those coming to the beach with their vehicles. The money that is generated is now being used to maintain the beach clean and also bring in newer things like a walk way, illumination, seating etc. These changes have now encouraged the Paradise isle resort to bring in the water scooter and a few motor boats. You can even have a camel or a pony ride. There still is a lot of work that is to be done to turn this beach to one of the best beaches in the world and we are at it. But you now know where all the change started and how, what was the key issue that changed the course of this beach. There are a lot of morals to take from this story. We'll discuss that in the next post.
