Today morning, on my way to office, I was confronted with( and consequently delayed by) an auto strike. Rush hour traffic was stopped, commuters were inconvenienced because two groups of drivers of different routes , were up in arms against each other. The problem had its seed in the high court ruling declining to extend the deadline for phasing out of commercial vehicles which are more than 15 years old. All the autos have to be converted to CNG/LPG mode but the supply of CNG islimited in the city. The govt is planning a crackdown on polluting vehicles without expanding the number of CNG pumps in the city. As result there are huge queues at certain fuel stations and when these run out of gas, trouble erupts. It has always been the bane of Indian policy making that decisions are taken and enforced by such people who are not directly affected by their decisions. And these decesions in turn affect the vast majority in more ways than one. The decision to phase out polluting vehicles is fine , but it should have been supplemented by more stations selling LPG. The vehicles are in place, the fuel required to run them is not and commuters are on the street. That’s India.
Situated at around 30-35 km from Port Blair is a beautiful,sandy,shallow beach called Collinpur. Since its situated a little away from the city, the beach is cleaner and quieter. Its covered by dense vegetation and you wont know that you're near the sea until you actually see it. Its a long stretch flanked by a hill on one side and since the gradient is not steep,its ideal for swimming and sunbathing. The main attraction for me was however, another beach called Kurma Dera. This beach is situated a little farther from Collinpur and is more deserted and quieter. The car couldn't go upto the beach and we had to walk nearly 2-2.5 km to reach the beach. The walk was through a very muddy and slushy path along a creek andd I expected to see a crocodile pop out any second. In fact, the second time we went to these beaches, we heard of crocodile attacks on the same day corresponding to our visit. Kurma means shells and I found the most amazing shells on this beach. And what surprise
Comments
Post a Comment