The talk of the town, especially in the coastal villages of Calangute, Candolim and Anjuna-Caisua, has been the holding of mega music festivals like Sunburn or Supersonic during Christmas week. For reasons best known only to politicians, the music festivals are being held at a time meant for family celebrations, for which even foreign tourists make it a point to visit.
English tourists were regular guests of many shacks in Calangute and Candolim, but sadly, they have been driven away by blaring music and traffic jams. High-spending tourists have also started to shy away from Goa during Christmas week.
Recently, there were talks of a mega event being shifted to Calangute to improve the tourism business in the coastal villages. But will it serve the purpose or kill the goose that lays golden eggs in the coastal belt?
The locals have gone through hardships or inconvenience due to the mega events, while major beneficiaries of the Sunburn or Supersonic are hoteliers, whose rooms are packed to the capacity during the festival.
The common man has to bear the brunt in terms of traffic jams, longer routes to reach their houses, and noise pollution, and inconvenience to their visitors. The mega music events have killed the festive mood of the coastal villages.
The government has earned money via license fees, etc. of the music festivals, but there is no improvement in the infrastructure, especially roads. The roads of Anjuna-Caisua have not been touched, except for roads that were dug on account of underground electrical cabling.
Worse still, the villagers could not move out of their houses during Christmas week last year due to traffic jams and diversions. So, for whose benefit are the mega music festivals being held in Goa? Do the tourists coming for music festivals patronize the shacks or smaller restaurants after dancing through the night? The taxi owners have gone through bad times due to traffic jams.
“Politicians and the government are in favour of mega music events for reasons best known to them. What does the common man benefit from it? We have to go through traffic jams and take longer routes to reach our homes. Though the organisers pay huge fees to the government, we do not see anything being spent on infrastructure. Our roads are bad or worse than the previous year and should have been at least hot-mixed after earning such a huge fees on holding the event in Vagator. Our village has also been destroyed by felling of trees on land earmarked as grazing land by our forefathers. Such mega music events in Vagator have been beneficial to select few people,” said Jeremy, a Vagator local.
“The organisers of mega music festivals have been causing destruction to nature by cutting trees on the grazing land of Vagator. If they are given a free hand to do likewise, they will literally take over the land and convert it into a permanent venue. We want the land to be preserved as grazing land. The music festival does not benefit too many of our locals, and last year, guest houses were on lesser occupancy due to the music event. High spending foreign tourists visiting Goa for Christmas skipped the festive season and may not come to Goa hereafter for Christmas due to mega music events,” said Michael D’Souza, another local.
Meanwhile, acting Sarpanch of Anjuna-Caisua Savio Almeida stated, “People of Anjuna-Caisua do have reservations over holding of Sunburn in Vagator, but we will go with the people over the issue. The infrastructure in Vagator has been lacking and the roads are in very bad shape. Anjuna-Caisua has not benefitted in terms of development.
