File picture of students cleaning up Puri beach

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 29: The much-awaited cleaning drive on the Puri sea beach will start from February 2. The state tourism department will invest Rs 97 lakh annually to keep the beach clean.

The tourism department has signed a contract with Jagruti, a city-based organisation specialising in solid waste management, to carry out the drive on the beach from Penthakata to Swargadwar. The drive will also include lifting of garbage on the road running parallel to the beach from Digabareni Square to Swargadwar.

Director and joint secretary of state tourism department M.R. Patnaik told The Telegraph: “Cleaning the beachfront in Puri has become a major challenge for us. So, we are engaging a private organisation for the purpose. The contract with the organisation will be effective for 10 years starting this year.”

The drive, originally scheduled to be launched on February 1, was postponed by a day as the tourism minister will be busy with the second international conference on Buddhism at Udayagiri.

Sources in the tourism department said that every year, around 1 crore tourists visited the state with 75 per cent of them going to Puri because of its beaches and the famous Jagannath temple. The Konark Sun temple, situated 35km away from Puri, also figures prominently on the itinerary of the tourists.

“According to the agreement with the tourism department, manual sweeping will be done both on the beach and the nearby road for three months. Later, mechanised sweeping will be introduced,” said Subhendu Mohapatra, head of Jagruti.

At present, Jagruti is associated with the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation for the cleaning and solid waste management. In February 2013, the state tourism department had floated a national tender for comprehensive management of beach cleaning in Puri, Konark and Gopalpur. However, only the Puri project materialised.

There will be two types of dustbins of 120 litre and 1,100 litre capacity for garbage collection. The smaller ones will be for primary collection, while the bigger ones will act as transit bins for transportation through tractors.

For this project, the Puri Municipality will form a beach protection squad comprising one dedicated vehicle and five to six squad members who will move in and around the beach to remove encroachment and carry out eviction drives. First, the squads will make people aware of beach cleanliness, but they would impose fines for creating nuisance in case of repeated mistakes. However, the amount is yet to be finalised.

Puri tourist officer Bijay Kumar Jena said: “As a pilgrim-based tourist destination, a clean beach will definitely add to the unique selling proposition of Puri. It draws many foreigners, especially during the car festival.”