Exotic Patenga beach remains neglected

Partial view of the sandy beach that stretches along the coast from Potenga to North Salimpur has immense potentiality to be turned into a profit-making tourist spot. Photo: Star

The beautiful sandy beach stretching from Patenga to North Salimpur near Sangu Gas Field has been neglected for years disregarding its potential of a profit-making tourist spot in Chittagong.

Those who visited the sea beach once, hardly come again.

Lack of minimum infrastructural facilities and security fear generally prevents the visitors from coming the beach more than once. Successive governments gave false promises to make the exotic beach area an attractive tourist spot since past two decades.

"When I first visited the beach near Salimpur I was just amazed. It was breathtaking. But my impression had evaporated in few minutes as I did not find a suitable corner or site to worth the while," an executive of a tea broker's firm said.

"Proper initiatives and a few touch of development, requiring low cost, could make the place a real hit to attract visitors and reap profit," Ashraful Islam and Masud Ahmed, two bankers, said.

Only some unplanned makeshift tea stalls, mobile studios and small shops of snail-and-cockle-made products surround the beach, overlooking the gorgeous Bay of Bengal. The drink sellers used to take over after the visitors or tourists arrive in the beach area. The visitors sometime came under harassment allegedly by those tenacious vendors.

Some local goons and touts regularly roam the area for prospective victims and they mug money and other valuables from the tourists, visitors said. "A police camp can help check and prevent such occurrences," they added.

Besides, the ship breaking industries along the beach have created an environmental hazards.

Worst more, the contaminated black oil being emitted from the scrap vessels, which later turned into sludge, also poses serious threat to the environment and marine fisheries.

Visitors said Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) should come forward to develop the sandy beach worthy of tourism. "And BPC should take all the existing aspects and problems into consideration before doing so."

The government has no any immediate plan for development of the beach, Md Rafiqul Islam, project in-charge of BPC in Chittagong, told this correspondent on Saturday.

Some senior officials visited the area recently to study the feasibility of building a five-star hotel, he said. But the development of the sandy beach was not in their consideration, he added.

He, however, said the area has all the potentialities to turn it into an attractive tourist spot.