Puri - where corruption went full circle

DN Singh The general belief that is abuzz in this part of India is that the people born in Orissa are lucky because they are from the land of lord Jagannath and luckier are those who belong to Puri itself, the real seat of this great cult where the Lord resides. A paradise for two reasons – one is the religious virtuosity and the other is the sea, almost garlanding the city like an arch with its brilliant natural beach serenading to the entire landscape, where the sunrise renews faiths and the sunset gives rebirth to hopes. The splendid beach had a past, dating back to the early sixties, when the visitors used to call it the golden sand bed. A crystal clear blue ocean and a shore free of clutter all along. Luckily, the Puri city has little to feel pride of anything of the colonial era, except a club house on the coast, called Victoria Club now turned into a hotel, where the English officers used to spend the evenings almost regularly. Everything else here was purely indigenous, the people who vend, the cuisines, offering a sweet blend of Oriya-Bengali taste and the majority who come here as tourists, mostly from West Bengal. But, things go often too far when hoteliers of Bengal origin tend to flaunt the regional pride through signboards in Bengali only. After all Puri is a cosmopolitan tourist destination. The virgin beach was and still is one of the major attractions for outside tourists and it was till early 1980s the use of air-conditioned rooms in the sea-side hotels was an unspoken taboo. The day-long cool breeze from the sea was enough to keep away the summer of Puri while the May or June solstice was never a menace with the mercury never exceeding 29-30 degree Celsius. And of course, the only problem – the humidity –was rendered disarmed by the breeze. Even the age-old residential houses inside the city were never subjected to the torment of the summer. People could sleep with windows open to usher in the breeze from the sea, meandering through the lanes and bylanes. The Bengali landlords who had made Puri their summer homes were no fools and today also, many of such structures exist in their old form creating the nostalgia of a fast paling past. The road that now divides the sea and the city was, in a way, non-existent. There was a bloom of casuarina forestry all along from Swargdwar onwards to the extreme end, serving as the most formidable barrier against the tidal invasions and little did the people of this city knew as what was ingression from the sea. A few makeshift eateries used to dot the shore while there were few hotels and a huge tourist bunglow, now lying useless. At the break of the dawn one used to find a motely crowd on the sea beach taking their morning walks against a fresh gust of wind from the Bay of Bengal. As the mornings matured to day some dhoti-clad hawkers with shoulder-load tiffin boxes used to sell the mouth-watering singaras and rasagollas, the much sought after breakfast by many strollers of Bengali origin. This can still be witnessed though not in the same way as it used to be. There is a change now… and a sea change. Signs of decay Imagine a sea beach now cluttered so much that the visiting tourists have to set the example by cleaning it with rags in hands, while a pestilential stench emanating from the open-air sewage outlets which can contaminate a visitor`s memory of this once fabulous beach. A walk along the beach early morning is fraught with the risk of stepping on a heap of human excreta hidden under the sand, a hazard created by the fishermen and others who unleash such nuisance before the break of the dawn. One doesn’t need to have any extra medical knowhow to ascertain how polluted the sea water has become which still remains a source of religious inspiration for those who take an early dip or simply bathe for medical reasons. People who used to bathe here decades back used to get cured from skin diseases, but now a bathe in the sea may have the reverse effect. There was a time in the late 1970s when a section of the tourists used to land here with a culture alien to the city and its youth. They used stuffs like marijuana, charas and other potent things for getting stoned. Slowly the local youngsters were drawn towards the vices and even educated youth found virtue in that evil and sunk deeper. In the specific pockets like Chakrachirtha and the Prachi area, at the other end, became the hives for such peddlers. The impact was horrible and soon a sizable number of youth lost their innocent adolescence in the abyss. The casuarina forest stretch, mentioned above, was razed about two decades back and a road was built to help the spurt of more hotels that was not permissible due to the CZR Act, which prohibits any permanent structure within 500 metres from the sea. There comes the role of corruption, which has replaced the placidity of this beautiful rendezvous. It all started not very long ago. It is not to glorify or berate any government but, it is politics alone which has paved the way for all that irks us the most today - unruliness. Corruption made its way into Puri from the early ‘80s, never mind who ruled then. That is immaterial, but the rot became vicious with the passing years. If you take a walk along the coast, after a short distance, you can notice how the sea has started ingressing, breaking the banks and inching towards the habitations each year slowly. And towards the western end, the annexe of a private resort was virtually eaten up by the furious tides. One may ask what has politics got to do with ingression? The removal of the casuarina cover along the coast was the root cause and that was done by the administration in complete connivance with the hotel lobby. So menacing has become the encroachment that the main road along the coast is getting narrower day by day and in the evening hours it is better to avoid a four-wheel drive as there is no parking space unless you drive a kilometre or two towards the west. The rules are disturbingly silent on the encroachers. In the year 2006-07, on the entire stretch of the road, costly lights were installed numbering about hundred to keep the beach area illuminated. Today, only the pillars are standing and the lights have completely disappeared along with the fasteners. Both the tourists from outside as well as the home crowd harbour a fear while taking a walk along. The exercise will repeat again before the Rath Yatra, of course and the local MLA will indulge in self back-patting. What is there today? A scary monstrosity of structures everywhere enjoying a free reign to encroach anywhere. The hoteliers rule the roost. And the real rulers behave as if they are merely the facilitators for the perpetrators of all the unruliness. Puri is in dire shortage of sweet-water reserve and there are two zones left – Baliapanda and Talabania – which have sweet-water reserve beneath. The previous zone has been virtually encroached by structures, mainly hotels, making a mockery of the CZR as well as the sweet-water limits. The city municipality appears to be as toothless as the state government and the gap between the two is bridged by one component, i.e. corruption. Inquiries have revealed how rules have been broken or bent to accommodate such a wholesome plunder. The other zone, on the fringes of the city, has been consumed by habitations covering over 40% of the area and the rest can go anytime. Recently, a local journalist was severely assaulted by the political goons for reporting on certain land-grabbing and he is still recuperating from the pain of a broken leg three months after the deadly attack. But the question is: why are other friends of this fraternity exhibiting such a submissive acquiescence? They can surely take the bull by its horns. Who is to blame? This holy city has earned yet another dubious distinction of patiently harbouring the country`s largest government-owned land scam. About 2,800 acres of government land towards the western end, soon after the sea-river confluence, has been surreptitiously transferred in the names of people who constitute the powerful land mafia. The process, in fact, started in the ‘70s and came to light in 1994. Administrative and vigilance probes have revealed the role of government officials behind the illegal transfers and ironically, now the government is buying its own land from the land mafias for a tourist project called `Samuka` at higher rates from the illegal owners! What can be a bigger farce than the fact that the state Revenue Ministry has ordered the fifth inquiry into the scam to know as to what the earlier four inquiries had revealed! Has the corruption come a full circle? That means the earlier findings are ready for the trash can! Politicians are hand-in-glove with the land-mafias and the officialdom cannot be expected to be bothered about the rots as a major section of it plays the role of catalyst. While the people of Puri are close to the thunder of the tidal waves breaking against the fragile shores, the unholy alliance is busy building a crazy garden wall around the resorts.