Mumbai should take tips on beach safety from Goa……Anil Singh
MUMBAI: The city, which has witnessed a spate of drowning deaths, does not have to look far for a viable beach safety plan. Neighbouring Goa has taken just two years to bring down its drowning deaths from an average of 50 a year to just two this year. And on July 16, it became the only state in India to get an ISO 9001 certificate for its beach safety programme.
Incidentally, the firm implementing the beach safety scheme there is from Mumbai. Drishti Special Response Services Pvt Ltd, the firm, had first offered its services to the BMC in 2006 but the civic authorities felt that the Rs 3 crore they were demanding per year was too high.
The firm opened its doors in Goa from September 2009 and now they cover 17 beaches. Their 460 trained and certified beach lifeguards claim to have saved 310 people from drowning, 47 of them foreigners. According to Drishti, drunken tourists are involved in 90% of the drowning incidents in Goa.
In contrast to the BMC’s 32 lifeguards, Goa’s lifeguards are trained in surf rescue, awareness, major first aid, use and administration of automated external defibrillator and oxygen as well as use of mechanised rescue equipment. Drishti Group’s director Manoj Agiwal credits their success to the dedicated efforts of their management team, which has several former naval officers, and 460 Goan boys who have knowledge of local conditions.
The lifeguards patrol the coast and beaches with six high-speed rescue craft (self-righting type), 52 jet skis, and 33 beach patrol jeeps.
Drishti’s 31 beach lifeguard stations have 66 spine boards with head block and extrication collars for managing spinal injuries, 322 rescue tubes and 175 surf rescue boards. Goa’s lifeguards keep in touch using using 283 hand-held communication radios, 53 fixed VHF Communication systems and 31 beach surveillance cameras.
While Mumbai lifeguards have rudimentary shelters, their counterparts in Goa have four full-fledged lifeguard centres with a fitness, sleeping and recreation area as well as four divisional maintenance and administration offices.
According to Agiwal, Rs 20 crore was given to procure equipment (which is the property of the government of Goa). The annual financial cost towards salary and wages, fuel, maintenance, payment of utilities, overhead and management fees of Rs 12 crore is provided by the government to maintain the beach life-guarding services.