India Launches Fifth Edition of Coastal Cleanup Campaign Swachh Sagar Surakshit Sagar

India's coastline stretches approximately 11,098 kilometres, touching nine states and four Union Territories. It encompasses highly diverse ecosystems: coral reefs in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Gulf of Kachchh, and the Gulf of Mannar; mangrove forests in the Sundarbans delta; seagrass beds along the eastern coast; and productive estuaries where major rivers meet the sea. These ecosystems sustain the livelihoods of millions of coastal fishing families and provide natural buffers against cyclones and storm surges. The Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, first issued in 1991 and revised most recently in 2019, is the primary legal framework governing land use and development along India's coast. It designates zones based on ecological sensitivity and proximity to the high-tide line, restricting construction and industrial activity in the most vulnerable areas.

Despite this framework, India's coastline has faced compounding pressures. Plastic waste, much of it single-use, enters the ocean through rivers, drains, and direct dumping. Once in the marine environment, plastics break down into microplastics, fragments smaller than five millimetres, which are ingested by fish and marine animals, enter the food chain, and have been detected in human tissue. Coastal sand mining, whether legal or illegal, removes the natural sediment that beaches and dunes depend on, accelerating erosion and destroying benthic habitats. Abandoned fishing gear, known as ghost nets, continues to trap and kill marine animals long after it is lost. Coral reefs, mangroves, and fish stocks that underpin coastal economies absorb these cumulative stresses silently, often without triggering the kind of immediate public alarm that a cyclone or oil spill would.

Ocean governance in India was historically fragmented across multiple ministries and departments, driven more by disaster response than by proactive stewardship. There was no sustained national platform that engaged ordinary citizens in the daily protection of coastal ecosystems. The Swachh Bharat Mission, launched as a mass public movement, provided a governance template: cleanliness as a shared civic responsibility rather than a purely administrative function. The Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) framework extended this logic to environmental behaviour more broadly, asking citizens to embed sustainability into daily habits. These two policy frameworks created the conceptual and institutional foundation for applying the same citizen-mobilisation model to the marine environment.