The Goa government is under mounting pressure to review or scrap its Rs 90-crore beach cleaning contract with an Uttar Pradesh-based agency following persistent complaints over uncollected waste and service lapses across the State’s coastline.
The agency was awarded the beach cleaning contract for a period of five years, extendable by another two years subject to satisfactory performance. The agency commenced its work on March 1, 2025. The total contract value was Rs 89,94,07,814.60. It covers the collection, segregation, transportation, and disposal of waste at 51 beach stretches across North Goa and South Goa districts.
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During the recently concluded Assembly session, Mormugao MLA Sankalp Amonkar sought to know whether the government had conducted any third-party inspection or performance audit of the beach cleaning works.
In the last year, the government has paid over Rs 9.17 crore to the agency after deducting about Rs 80.90 lakh as penalties for poor performance complaints. There were complaints mostly from shack operators about garbage not being collected for days at the major beaches of Calangute, Baga, Candolim, and Anjuna.
The Department stated that whenever complaints are received the Department verifies them and seeks an explanation from the beach cleaning agency. Necessary deductions are made from the monthly bills for any observed deficiencies.
Joaquim Silveira who was earlier engaged in beach cleaning contract said, “There is no change in the beach cleaning after awarding the contract to an agency. In the past we used to clean beaches manually unlike use of machinery and vehicles. Now jeeps are seen moving on the beaches and it is destroying beaches. You cannot take vehicles on the beaches. The frequent movement of vehicles by the agency and lifeguards is crushing microorganisms present in the sand, leading to ecological imbalance and contributing to fish depletion. Also the movement of vehicles is also destroying sand dunes and if this continues, beaches may lose their dunes within the next five to six years as sand is gradually pushed into the sea. The beach cleaning has to be done manually.”
Goan Traditional Shack Owners Association president Manuel Cardozo said, “There is no proper beach cleaning system in Calangute. Right now it’s ok because there is not much business. But they should have more vehicles and more labourers. There are only two-three vehicles for whole of North Goa which is not sufficient. Because of this there is no proper system and the labourers come anytime they want. During lunch time when they come the whole place stinks because of the lifting of garbage.”
Goa Shack Welfare Owners Society general secretary John Lobo said, “The situation has improved in the last 15 days, but before that it was really bad. We have a shack group on WhatsApp with the tourism minister, director, garbage contractor and all shack operators posting complaints all the time. Even the minister was asking the director why this was happening and said the contractor should be replaced. But now there is a big improvement.”
Questioning the state of beach cleaning, Calangute Sarpanch Joseph Sequeira asked, “Are we promoting beach tourism or garbage tourism? Garbage collection on the beach has turned into a total disaster with shack owners forced to dump waste in village areas. The village panchayat then has to collect this garbage because it falls within our jurisdiction and the shack owners are our people. After the media report about garbage being dumped at Tito’s Lane, I immediately contacted the Tourism Minister, who ensured its removal. There is a lack of transparency in waste handling and we do not know where the beach cleaning contractor, who collects garbage from Calangute and Candolim, is dumping or segregating the waste.”
In view of the ongoing issues, Sequeira added that the village panchayat has urged the Department of Tourism to hand over beach cleaning responsibilities to the local body. “This is Calangute beach and our reputation is getting spoiled,” he said.
Tukaram Pagi of Canacona said, “For 15 years I supervised the beach cleaning in stretches of Rajbhag, Agonda, Galgibaga and Talpona. Now the department has added two more stretches of Khola and Polem. But there is no significant improvement. We used to clean beaches manually and our contractor used to visit regularly for inspection. The Agonda had received the best beach cleaning award for cleanliness and maintenance of three-km-long stretch during our time.”
