13 Indian beaches to be developed as per ‘Blue Flag’ standards

13 Indian beaches are all set to get the Blue Flag certification. This certification is granted to beaches on the basis of cleanliness standards, being environment friendly and to be equipped with amenities of international standards for tourists.
Beaches from Maharashtra, Odisha and other coastal states will be the first ones from Asia to become eligible for the Blue Flag certification. The Society for Integrated Coastal Management (SICOM), which is an environment ministry body, has been working on the management of coastal areas as per the standards of Blue Flag certification.

SICOM Project Head Arvind Nautiyal informed that to make the beaches tourist-friendly as per Blue Flag standard, a beach needs to be plastic-free and have efficient waste management system in place.
The project head further said that a beach, to be certified under the Blue Flag has to strictly comply with 33 tourism and environment related conditions. As of now, there is no single beach in Asia that has passed the standards of Blue Flag.

This standard certification was established by Copenhagen-based Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) in 1985. The Blue Flag certification first started in Paris. Then, in the next two years, nearly all the European beaches were developed as per the Blue Flag standard.

The Blue Flag campaign then started spreading outside Europe, to South Africa, in 2001. Till date, no Asian beach has received this certification. In India, the Environment Ministry started the initiative of developing Indian beaches as per the Blue Flag certification as a pilot project in 2017.

A senior official from the Ministry stated that 13 Indian beaches were chosen under this project. He also mentioned that Chandrabhaga beach of Odhisa’s Konark coast was the first to pass the certification process, which will be awarded on June 5, on World Environment Day.