Thiruvananthapuram: From street hawkers to street dogs, problems are plenty for Kovalam which hardly has two months to go before another season. Barring, a newly paved interlocked tiled road that goes down to Eve’s beach, no infrastructural improvement await the beach this season. Though only a small stretch of sand is available for tourists to venture out during rough seasons, illegal food stalls have occupied it, right on the sands.
“The main in issue our guests raise is street sellers who run behind them pestering with their products. We annually host more than 2 lakh tourists, and we are only moving to worse condition amidst no order,” said Sam Jacob, who runs a homestay here. “For us, for last few years, the tourism season begins late, only by mid-December. Gone are the times when rooms used to be filled in October.”
The hawkers reappear in spite of raids by local police. “We ask them to avoid setting up stalls on the rough beach, but not heeded,” said one of the 38 lifeguards deployed here. According to Friends of Marine Life Coordinator Robert Panipilla, the Kovalam beach will also be lost like the 60 percent of the beach in the state which disappeared in past three decades. “Constructions (such as seawalls and ports) which discourage accretion of sand on beaches is hitting Kovalam like other beaches of Kerala,” said Mr Panipilla.
