Machilipantnam beach development totally neglected

Machilipatnam: Machilipatnam Beach, one of the most visited tourist destinations in the State for decades, now faces utter negligence. Despite witnessing lakhs of visitors every year, there is no provision of minimum facilities. There are no washrooms, toilet facilities and even dress changing arrangements at the beach premises.

Machilipatnam beach, also known as Manginapudi beach, located 15 km away from Krishna district headquarters Machilipatnam, is one of the safest tourist spots for sea bathing, and also nearest beach to the Telangana State visitors.

In view of the increasing visitors, the beach was developed during 2000-2004 and the then government made a facelift to the beach by undertaking some development works. However, all these development works got washed away due to Tsunami that occurred in 2004. Since then, there was no development in the beach for almost ten years.

After 2014, the then government undertook some development works such as small roads and constructing walls at the premises. But the government and authorities didn't take any initiative to construct toilets and dress changing facilities. But managed with makeshift arrangements.

It seems that both the district administration and tourism department are not considering development of the beach even though lakhs of visitors have been thronging the beach every year.

On the other hand, there is no power facility at the beach.

Though the visitors asked to arrange an electricity facility by erecting electric poles, Panchayat Raj and the district administration haven't responded. Lack of electricity supply, visitors were forced to vacate the beach by 6 pm.

K Srikanth, a visitor from Bala Nagar of Hyderabad, who came here along with family, expressed dissatisfaction as there were no toilets and dress changing rooms. He said, "We came here for relaxation after searching the internet for details. We enjoyed this beach a lot. The beach atmosphere and the sunrise scenery were awesome. But there are no amenities. We had to change our wet dress in the car."

Another tourist from Vijayawada, M Prasad said that there is no doubt that the beach is one of the most beautiful places. 'But we have to vacate the beach by evening as there is electric lights. I requested the authorities concerned to arrange power supply and other amenities for the sake of visitors,' he said. On the other hand, it is learnt that the authorities are keen on developing Pedda Patnam beach, which is located 10 km away from Manginapudi beach, reportedly due to the pressure from political leaders. It is learnt that a political leader, who has over 100 acres of land at Pedda Patnam beach, is impeding Manginapudi beach for not getting developed. However, there is a huge demand from public and tourists that the district administration and tourism authorities must take up development of Manginapudi beach keeping in view of lakhs of visitors.