inspection of all water sports activities soon
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, DEC 28
Taking the death of the 21-year-old medical student recently as a wake-up call, the State government has planned to conduct a massive inspection exercise of all water sports activities shortly.
A meeting to discuss the issue was called by the Chief Secretary Sanjay Srivastava on Thursday with all concerned heads of the related departments.
The meeting was attended by officials from the tourism department, Captain of Ports (CoP) and the marine police and examined existing laws on water sports and the effectiveness of their implementation.
Officials also examined notifications demarcating zones for water sports on the State’s beaches.
“Copies of these notified places on beaches were exchanged among the government departments. It has been decided that a joint inspection will be held by all related agencies – the tourism department, the captain of ports and the marine police,” told tourism official who did not want to be named.
“The inspection exercise is likely to be conducted beginning week,” he added.
Tourism department has also compiled a list of water sports operators in Goa and sent copies to the CoP of and the marine police. The officials also suggested a change in approach to better implementation of water sports zones.
Presently, flags are used to demarcate boundaries between swimming zones and water sports zones which have not been proved effective in maintaining the zones.
For better implementation the government now intends on procuring plastic floating barricades which will be kept in the sea. This should give swimmers and water sports operators a better idea if they are stepping out of limits.
The government has come under fire since the death of Shrey Makhija, a student from at Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, who had come to Goa with a group of friends on December 14. He, along with friends, went to Baga beach, where two of them hired an eight-seater motorboat.
His friends now blame the water sports operator, who believe their friend’s death could have been averted only if the water sports operator had been careful.
The police has arrested boat owner A Thinock and driver Appa Maruthi under Sections 280 (rash navigation of vessel) and 304 A (death by negligence) of IPC.
