Mother Nature has endowed Goa with a beauty second to none. Its beauty can be described as “Quaint and Mystique”. Quaint which means ‘attractively unusual’ and Mystique means ‘a quality of mystery, glamour or power associated thereof to someone or something’; both these adjectives make it naturally enchanting.
No human hands can enhance these unique qualities but we have to strictly strive to keep the traits of our Quaint and Mystical Goa unaltered in any sense of the term.
How? First for some simple statistics, Goa had a share of 7% of all foreign tourists arriving in India in 2011, in 2013 the share was a meagre 2.5% and in 2014 it is still less. Goa ranks 10th in foreign tourist arriving in India in 2013, and among the domestic tourist it was not even in the top ten.
Now for the How? In his Independence Day address at Mapusa the Deputy CM of Goa Francis D`Souza urged the people of Goa to “Make Goa cleanest state in the World”.
Cleanliness is one of the most important indices in a tourist`s priority for visiting a place. Loud and Ostentatious Dubai is very clean, and Singapore is called Antiseptic because of its manic obsession with cleanliness; both these countries contribute significantly to their GDP on account of tourism.
At present we the residents of Goa know the filth our cities, towns and villages are seeped into because of a breakdown of garbage collection and disposal in all parts of Goa. To solve this problem through whatever new legislation the elected representatives from all parties from the legislature, civic bodies and panchayats should get together and put in a master plan in the next six months for garbage collection and disposal in every corner of Goa to keep Goa absolutely clean on a permanent basis.
If every household has to pay Rs200 to Rs 300 per month towards this so be it, we the citizens should think positively that a clean Goa will save us, our children and specially infants from infections and diseases which will save us ten times the amount in medical and doctors fees.
The menacing phenomena of tar balls on our beaches has to be studied and investigated in a scientific manner. This is deliberately done by defaulting sea vessels as our coastal vigilance is poor, ineffective and insufficient. We have to evolve a full proof system not only to make our beaches tar ball proof but also garbage, bottle and plastic proof.
Our majestic white sand beaches, warm sea waters and green vegetation in proximity to the sea are a magnet that attracts international and domestic tourists. In fact 90% of all tourism in Goa happens only for its beautiful beaches in coastal areas. Keep this soul intact if tourism in any sense has to flourish in Goa. Presently our majestic beaches are getting murkier and black. We have to stop this right now.
When a tourist puts their foot in Goa their first point of contact are the transport operators, roads and the traffic police, a lot is lacking in this vein of our infrastructure.
I was quoted Rs 800 that came down to a final Rs 500 for a 12 km trip from Margao to down south at 12 noon. How does one justify Rs 500 for a 12 km ride at noon? (Is not petrol and diesel cheapest in Goa?) I pulled up my backpack, boarded a public bus and got to my destination paying Rs 15. No one grudges paying a little extra but even the wealthiest tourist does not like to be “ripped off”.
The authorities should sit down and in a non-partisan manner solve this problem with all stake holders with a rational price structure — “Rip off” is what the tourist in Goa is subjected to and no one is looking.
Next all signages on all roads should be put up clearly to international standards in three languages (as per the government survey done of drivers using our roads) with English as a compulsory language.
Every road should have a speed limit put up at regular intervals of a couple of km’s. The traffic department should invest in speed guns, radars and CCTV`s. All these cost will more than pay for themselves. Fines collected will be largely non- contestable, in the short term there will be a drastic reduction in accidents and road fatalities. This has to be complimented with the traffic police being trained in a professional manner and definitely the capacity increased to man the roads.
Public transport — buses, taxis, rickshaws should be converted to CNG to bring down pollution.
Supply of power and water to be made very efficient and reliable. The tourist now looks to stay in a quaint and comfortable corner of a village and not necessarily in a starred hotel. This will give a boost to the rural economy, reliable power will also make our starred hotels more competitive.
These are very basic, simple doable common-sense plans that will bring Goa huge dividends in increasing tourist traffic to our state and adding to the states GDP.
No amount of grandiose “Tourism Master plan and Vision plan” will succeed without first doing the basics. Keep Goa quaint, enchanting and unaltered but in a modern understated manner, that’s what tourist to Goa is looking for, definitely not Golf courses.
Nature has bestowed on Goa 99% of her asserts. Let us do our one percent.
(The author is a freelance writer and activist)
