This beautiful, untapped countryside of Maharashtra gave us a week of peace and quiet - A great get-away from smog-filled Pune. Konkan has been blessed with a unique combination of Sahyadri Mountain Range and the ocean. It is simply a treat for the eyes.
Obviously, as some of you might have guessed this blog is not about what is fine and dandy! :) There is so much potential for developing tourism in Konkan in a very environment friendly way!
- Plastic – it s curse to our generation. The unsightly presence of plastic garbage on the beaches hurts not only the eyes but also the heart! I usually do not speak unless I have a solution in mind and here are a couple of ideas – anyone out there reading?
- a. Make cloth bags from waste produced by tailors. Sell these cloth bags of various sizes at a cheap rate… make them available in every shop and store and corner of Konkan. Post signs to re-use these bags.
- b. Provide filtered tap water at every petrol pump. Travelers can fill up their bottles or cans whenever they fill up petrol in their vehicles.
This will curb the use of plastic to begin with.
2. Ban the sale and use of plastic.
3. Every
beach should have a ticket window with garbage cans by it. Every beach should charge at least 5-10 rupees per person. This collected sum should go towards keeping the beaches clean and free of trespassers-- On some beaches we weren’t able to relax by the water... because there were people driving their SUVs and cars at full speed on the beach… some people were running a para-sailing business… which is great.. but unfortunately the para-sailing was being done using a motor vehicle instead of a motor boat.
4. Use of re-cycled newspaper bags is also important.
5. Food should be served in
“patravlis” (plates made from leaves) if there is a need to use disposable plates.
6. Food and drink should be allowed only in designated areas of the beach and garbage should only be thrown in assigned garbage containers…
A fine of 5000 Rupees should be charged to offenders. – The “beach police” should be in-charge of this.
7. The villages should also get a cut from the proceeds of the beach and this money can be used for the upkeep of the village streets.
8.
Composting should be made mandatory for organic waste of every temple and every household in Konkan. It is imperative that people of Konkan wake up and take this task up seriously. We saw people of restaurants and temples throw the organic waste into the sea which is brought back on the beach with waves.
Simply keeping the villages and beaches clean and free of plastic, would help increase the appeal to international tourism.
9. We also witnessed a number of
toilets built right on the sea whereby the waste goes directly in the water - Here is an idea to fix this - please visit the following link: I am sure it is very cost effective and easy to implemet. Common sense goes a long way.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/04/haiti.SOIL.toilets/index.html
Some ideas for local businesses:
Selling organic products will be great business:
10. Currently kokam, avala, jambhul, karvanda etc... products are being sold in plastic containers and use preservatives and unnecessary chemicals. It would be nice to buy
all-natural products containing no preservatives.
Instead of plastic the either glass or following type of containers can be used.. they look nice, and give a feel of home-made.
