Every relationship is always based on mutual trust and the belief that decisions will be governed by fair play. And a relationship between critical stake holders of an industry on which Goa needs to survive on and the agencies which manage tourism, can blossom only through transparency and the absolute lack of nasty surprises. However the exact opposite is happening between the shack owners and the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority. And since their actions are watched by the courts, the government is helpless when decisions which are getting increasingly unpopular and unfair are taken.
The latest in this line of decisions is allowing the shacks in Baga and Sinquerim to function only for one year when they paid shack fees for three years. And while the GCZMA may have taken this decision since they are yet to carry out inspections to see if the shacks are compliant as per directive of the NGT, the move has pitted the shack owners versus the tourism department which accepted shack fees for three years. But here again the government is squarely pointing to the GCZMA, when confronted by angry shack owners.
Meanwhile the exercise of demarcation of shacks is still not complete. A team has been sent to demarcate the shacks on the beaches in North and South Goa. In North Goa, there are some beaches left to complete. After this is done, shacks will be erected, post which another round of inspections will be held. There is no way all shacks will be fully operational before December 10 a full two and half months after the the tourism season began. And they will have about four months and a little more to do business, reducing their annual businesses to four months.
Once again the shack owners of Goa have not been treated as partners, like major resort owners and those setting up hotels and villas are, but as pariahs. Since they are soft targets, they appear to be completely defenseless. Herald is not advocating that NGT orders and steps that the GCZMA needs to take, should be discarded. But then, even these agencies need to look at the common good and needs of so many shack owners and simply work in tandem and with urgency, keeping October 1 as the non negotiable day for the starting of the shack business.
Like demonetisation, the intent of the shack policy is not questionable but the execution has been disastrous. The Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority cannot work in splendid isolation and not care about how delays in decision making impacts lives and livelihoods, not to speak of the reputation hit that Goa gets as a tourist destination.
As shack owners have calculated, each shack owner has approximately lost around Rs 2.5 lakh of business in the past two and half months and they have asked for and surely deserve to be compensated. That is the least that the government can do to take care of the immediate concerns of Goa’s tourism foot soldiers.
