Beaches along the coastlines of India are disappearing continuously at an alarming rate. Erosion has caused many coastline areas to sweep under sea water and one of the most affected areas is south India’s small town Puducherry. The place used to have a broad sea beach extending to four kilometres. But owing to massive erosion the entire beach has washed away and what lies today is ugly boulders as sea walls. The natural movement of sands got disrupted due to building of a harbour near the town.  The creation of the harbour prevented the longshore drift of the sand along the coast. As a result, the beach got washed away. This erosion caused entirely because of man-made reason. This created a lot of problem for the fishermen, who  used to park their boats on the pristine beach. Now the sea walls made of builders act as a replacement of the beaches, but these are not permanent solution. These rocks also get eroded with time and more rocks are added to the beach. With each kilometre of beach eroding away India is losing more areas to built real estate by the sea and is missing out on more opportunities of beach tourism. Building sea walls is not the answer to erosion but it accelerates further erosion. With more harbours and ports are being planned to be built along the coastlines, there is a high threat of losing many pristine sand beaches of India.

The Logical Indian appeals to the community members to please be alert of the danger and start taking action. We can’t blame the government for everything. After all, it’s not always about our rights, we should focus on our duties as well. It is our duty as citizens to ensure that we set a good example. Please visit
http://www.disappearingbeaches.org to get involved.