{ முகநூல் கருத்துக்கள்}{ட்விட்டர் கருத்துக்கள்}

On July 16, 2006, the renovated Kayalpatnam beach with a new park was formally thrown open to public. The total cost of the Park works came to Rs.30 lakhs. Rs.15 lakhs was given by Department of Tourism, Rs.10 lakhs came from Small Savings Incentive Fund and Rs.5 lakhs was the fund of Kayalpatnam Municipality.

The Park - spread over an area of about 10,000 sq.metres - was indeed eye-catching. It's lawns (costing about Rs.6.3 lakhs), it's neat walk area (costing about Rs.4 lakhs), it's play things (costing about Rs.2 lakhs), it's fountains (costing about Rs.1.14 lakhs) and it's granite benches (costing about Rs.1.25 lakhs) were major attractions.

It was no surprise then - with wide publicity given, hundreds began to throng the beach - from within the town and from the neighbouring areas too. There simply was no similar beach in the area. Kayalpatnam beach was neat, attractive and easily reachable. For the people of Kayalpatnam though, the initial joy began to give way to doubts and worries. What for many centuries had been a kind of local community beach was suddenly transformed into a major, local tourist attraction. With no separation of men and women in place, many in Kayalpatnam began to see a disaster waiting to happen. The communal riots of early 1990s and the events following the suicide incident at KMT Hospital began to playup in people's minds.

Was the park idea wrong in the first place? Surprisingly, many - if not most - in Kayalpatnam seem to feel so.

If the government was looking to develop local tourism in the region, they could've been asked to look elsewhere. Or if it was just a public park that needed to be built in Kayalpatnam, they could've left the beach as it was and developed a good park elsewhere in the town. Clearly the people of the town were not consulted when this idea of park on the beach was originally taken up (about 10 years back). Nor consulted when it finally got the clearance from the government.

That is all history now. Today we have a park in Kayalpatnam beach - that is attracting crowds from all over. It is two-years old now, grass on the lawns are gone, play things are rusting and the overall maintenance is poor. Surprisingly, this sorry state of the park today however hasn't stopped people from afar come to the beach.

There are some in Kayalpatnam - who hope this poor maintenance (quite common with government properties) would drive away people soon. They hope the ugly and unattractive beach would no longer be an attraction.

There are couple of issues with this line of thinking: One - this may just not work out, people could still keep coming to the beach (attractive or ugly). Second - for a community to even consider letting a public place rot (for whatever reason) is really unadvisable.

So what is the solution? Let us get into the heart of the matter - which is our fear about the consequences of letting men and women from the local populace and the neighbouring towns mix at the beach. There is a simple solution to this problem: Just divide the beach into areas for men, women and families and strictly and sensibly enforce this.

This is not a new idea. It is as old as the park in the beach itself. Many had represented to Kayalpatnam Aikiya Jamaath months ago. The Chairman of Municipality had in an interview with Kayalpatnam.com had also promised to look into this. Nothing has moved. It is time segregation of the Kayalpatnam beach was put in place.