Vizag Collector proposes Beach Police Station to curb rise in drowning deaths

In view of the increasing drowning death cases at the beaches in and around Vizag, the Collector and District Magistrate, Pravin Kumar, has urged Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to permit the setting up of a dedicated beach police station.

An alarming number of drowning deaths has caused the city great horror. Vizag’s beaches recorded about 30 drowning death cases in the year so far, with an average rate of 50 deaths per year in the past one decade.

Mr Kumar put forth the statistics at the Collector’s conference held recently at Undavalli. He also proposed the Beach Police Station initiative, reiterating its merits in helping curb the rate of drowning deaths.

“The number of tourists coming to Vizag beaches has gone up substantially in the last few years and so does the drowning cases. The beach police station will run by the Police Department. Apart from ensuring steps to control the drowning cases, the dedicated police station can also keep an eye on the anti-social activities at the beaches”, Mr Kumar told The Hindu.

According to him, the Chief Minister has responded positively on setting up of the beach police station and promised that a decision would be taken very soon.

Concerns regarding drowning deaths have been around for a lot of time. A recently proposed initiative to tackle this problem was the Sea Pools Project. In fact, the sources in the APTDC told The Hans India that sea pools will become a reality at 5 locations in Vizag- RK Beach, INS Kurusura, Tenneti Park, Rushikonda, and Bheemili areas- by the end of 2018. New features added in the project include equipment ensuring high safety, such as inflated floating walls and underground inflated sand beds.