Discuss the significance of citizen-led environmental campaigns like 'Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar' in addressing marine plastic pollution in India. Examine the institutional coordination challenges involved.

Marine plastic litter is largely land-based in origin, making it a behavioural problem as much as a regulatory one. Launched in 2022 as a 75-day inter-ministerial drive under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, 'Swachh Sagar, Surakshit Sagar' (Clean Coast, Safe Sea) treats ocean health as a people's movement rather than a purely enforcement task [2].

Significance of the citizen-led model

• Behaviour change at source: the campaign's three goals — consume responsibly, segregate at home, dispose responsibly — target the household stage where marine plastic actually originates [2].
• Scale through volunteers: mobilising students, NGOs and coastal communities, the original edition covered 75 beaches with roughly 75 volunteers per km of coastline [2]; SSSS 3.0 concluded in September 2024 with drives at over 80 locations, removing more than 60 tonnes of waste [4].
• Complementing regulation: it operationalises the single-use plastic ban socially, converting a prohibition into everyday practice.
• Citizen science: the 2026 edition (12–19 September) pairs manual cleaning with the Sagar App and scientific monitoring of seawater quality and shoreline erosion under the PRITHVI scheme [1].
• Diplomatic dividend: domestic credibility strengthens India's push for a Global Ocean Pact at the UN Ocean Conference [6].

Institutional coordination challenges

• Multiplicity of agencies: MoES is nodal while MoEFCC, the Indian Coast Guard and NDMA are partners — overlapping environmental, security and disaster mandates require constant convergence [1][2].
• Centre–local gap: cleaned litter re-enters the sea unless urban local bodies sustain segregation and landfill management year-round.
• Episodic design: a week-long annual drive risks becoming symbolic without continuous monitoring; the Minister himself urged departments to work as an integrated ecosystem rather than silos [1].
• Data and volunteer dependence: outcomes hinge on voluntary mobilisation, not statutory obligation.

Citizen campaigns thus supply the awareness and legitimacy that regulation alone cannot. Institutionalising them — through app-based litter accounting, ULB linkage and year-round beach stewardship — would convert an annual ritual into durable coastal governance, advancing SDG-14 on life below water.