Puducherry,  Coinciding with the year-end festivities, a band of ecological enthusiasts from University of Hyderabad (UoH)and Pondicherry University (PU) are working to clean up the mess and help marine life, along the Puducherry coast.

To create awareness, the World Green Army along with the students for development of the UoH, and PU ABVP unit have embarked on a campaign which began from December 28, and will continue until January first week.

Rohit Bondugula, Ph.D. scholar at the University of Hyderabad and founder-member of the World Green Army said: "These clean-up drives will be carried out regularly every week so that our efforts will make sure the beaches are clean and there won't be any harm to
the marine animals like sea anemones, barnacles, chitons, crabs, isopods, limpets, mussels, sea stars, snails and turtles which are mostly found in the beaches. We are also running awareness campaigns and are in talks with the local fishermen and coastal area residents for initiating the clean-up drives and maintaining their neighborhood clean."

In all, around 60 volunteers from the two universities, are participating in the campaign. With covid restrictions easing over the past few months, tourists and visitor arrivals have seen a rise which has also exposed beaches to pollution.

Vishal Agarwal Ph.D. Scholar of Pondicherry University said: "Most of the tourists started visiting the beaches in Pondicherry and several other beaches. However, most of these tourists are not cautious about the marine life of the sea. They dump plastic, glasses, litter around and throw the wastes into the beaches thereby affecting the marine animals."

Together, the volunteers have managed to bring about improvement in some of the beaches that the Union Territory of Puducherry is famous for.

Sharwananad, Ph.D scholar ABVP Pondicherry University President said: "We have cleaned few beaches such as Chinna Kalapet beach, Soorya beach and Serenity beach and collected lots of waste and garbage dumped by humans."

The UoH students, who travelled all the way from Hyderabad and collaborated with the PU students, are looking forward to collaborating with several NGOs to work for sustainable development goals, environmental and climate issues, lake protection and wildlife issues, said Rohit Bondugula.