PANJIM: The Shack Owners Welfare Society (SOWS) of Goa has submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister, Tourism Minister and Director of Tourism on Tuesday whereby they have asked to grant an extension of three months time for payment of their licence fees.
“It is necessary, essential and incumbent that such extensions are granted to allottees and allow them to use the final term of allotment to enable them to earn their livelihood,” said Cruz Cardozo, SOWS president.
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As per the Shack Policy 2019-22, the licence issued is valid for a period of three years.
The SOWS pointed out that the shack owners have invested lakhs of rupees to set up and maintain these beach shacks. These include licence fees, security deposit, payments to various government departments. Shack owners added that they are already under tremendous pressure with inflation, imposition of Good and Services Tax, taxes and various other fees, levy and charges imposed under law.
“Several allottees have already obtained financial aid, loans and advances for investing huge sums of money in such shacks. In such circumstances, the shack allottees are enormously burdened by financial investments, commitments and servicing of various loans and advances,” said Cardozo.
He further referred to how the shack owners suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic where the tourism sector had come to a standstill and that for a period of 18 months, shack allottees could not reap any benefit of their respective shack allotments.
“It is a matter of record that several shack allottees could not even put up a shack and could not use the infrastructure put up by them due to the pandemic related restrictions,” said Cardozo.
While acknowledging that the government had provided them with partial support by waiving some portion of their licence fees, the SOWS lamented that despite such measures, majority of the shack allottees are still struggling to keep their businesses afloat and meet the ever growing expenses and expenditure.
Reiterating that the investment of the travel and tourism industry in Goa at large is yet to be recouped and that international tourists are yet to visit the State, Cardozo said under such circumstances, several allottees are facing difficulties in timely payments towards licence fees as contemplated.
