TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The withdrawal of nearly 100 Indian Reserve Battalion from the beaches of Goa for election duty, within the next couple of days has thrown the tourism department into a tizzy as this will upset their entire beach security arrangements.
The IRB personnel used to visit the coastal areas and beaches of the State and look after security of tourists and locals, officials say.
A communiqué was issued from police headquarters here on Tuesday informing the tourism department over the withdrawal of the IRB of the Goa Police possibly for two months within a day or two.
“This could jeopardize the entire security and patrolling systems that were in place for more than a year,” said tourism department source.
The IRB team of 100 personnel have been manning the beaches of Goa, cracking down on touting, illegalities by shack operators, encroachments, loud music and night patrolling.
Tourism department sources say that the withdrawal of the IRB for the elections could create a huge problem as the tourism season as summer approaches.
“It is not possible to have any backup plans nor is the tourism department in a position to deploy staff to monitor the 105 km beach belt,” a Secretariat source said.
The tourism department appeared to helpless pointing out that the IRB team could be away for around two months which coincides with the two crucial months of the season and are keeping fingers crossed .
Also even though the tourism flying squads of the department are on the job, these squads act upon reports from the IRB on the beach belt.
Meanwhile, the government has constituted the PCR squads to swoop down on illegal businesses run by foreign nationals in an effort to control the rift between the tourist taxi operators and foreign nationals engaged in illegal business.
The taxi operators have expressed satisfaction over the progress of meetings on tourist taxi issues and a series of meetings have been held including one today.
Tourist taxi tariffs have also been analyzed and likely to be finalized and notified after the elections.
A joint meeting of tourist taxi operators and tour operators is scheduled next week.
