The entire area of Patenga sea beach with an embankment-cum-promenade made of large boulders is now virtually inaccessible to visitors who come to enjoy the scenic beauty. Tourists are confronted with hundreds of over-enthusiastic shop workers who often use physical obstructions to force the visitors to buy their products on sale.

The sandy beach along Patenga, 15 kilometres from the Chittagong city centre, looks dirty with litter all around. Local people said that most wastes--produced in the 500 illegal shops and by thousands of visitors--end up in the sea and often washed ashore. The beach also wears a telltale sign of oil sleek caused by the ships in the outer anchorage.

The Water Development Board (WDB) officials are now considering leasing out the beach to these unauthorised shop owners.

Executive Engineer of the WDB in Chittagong Moniruzzaman told The Daily Star that they have submitted two proposals to the authorities. The first proposal asks the deputy commissioner of Chittagong to evict the illegal shops and clear the embankment and the beach. The second proposal, now under active consideration in the WDB and the relevant ministry in Dhaka, proposes to lease the area out "on temporary basis" to the encroaching quarters.

Asked whether they had any plan to involve any landscape planner to streamline the 500 or more illegal shops and relocate the bazaar with a facelift, the WDB officials said they did not consider any aspect of landscaping. "We do not have any plan about the landscape, we simply want to lease out the area to earn revenue," the WDB engineer said.

Tourists who visit Patenga find no recreation whatsoever. Instead, they hastily leave the area being irritated by the workers in the restaurants, tea stalls and shops selling conch shells and foreign souvenir.

"We came here to see the sea but there is no way we can do it unless we buy something from the shops on the embankments where we are supposed to walk," said Tanjil, a student of Chittagong University, who brought his sister to the beach.

Having set up the shops, mostly within the last two years, the owners have also divided into two groups forming two separate co-operatives under which they collect rents from every shop.

Gulam Mahmud Bhutto, vice president of the Patenga Sea Beach Shop Owners' Co-operative Ltd, claimed that all shop owners come from Phulasripara, Nahirpara and Charpara villages and they are victims of erosion and land acquisition.

"We have applied to the WDB and other government offices to grant the lease to us and our local MP has also recommended it," said Bhutto.

He admitted that too many shops have created a crowded situation in the area but he said once they are "legally settled" they will streamline the market. He claimed that the local people have converted the area into a tourist spot and they had the right to do business first.

According to local people, several hundred shops were set up within the last two years under direct patronage of ruling party men with the hope that once the government decides to lease out the land, every party man will benefit from it.