
CALANGUTE: The beach shack season, which is already delayed, may be further delayed with beach shack owners planning to approach the courts to modify the beach shacks policy 2023-26 which was announced by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday.
Shack Owners Welfare Society (SOWS) general secretary John Lobo said “As per the tourism trade act, the tourist season begins from September 1 and we should have been given the licences one-two months before the start of the new season so that we can apply for the GSPCB permission, electricity and other licences. Now the shacks policy has been just announced, which means the licences will take another one-two weeks at least and we will be able to start only in November.”
He said the new beach shacks policy is in contempt of a recent high court order which had come after a local filed a public interest petition complaining about various violations of the beach shacks policy. The HC order had resulted in most of the shacks being sealed in April because of the absence of consent-to-operate from the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB).
The HC order said “The director of tourism must consider making allotments and issuing provisional licenses at least a month or two before the season commences.”
Lobo said as the shack license fee is for the entire season of nine months, “it should be proportionately reduced as we get only seven months instead of nine months,” Lobo said, adding that they are waiting for the policy to be notified before deciding on their next step.
The other main union, Goan Traditional Shack Owners Association (GTSOA) also said the new beach shacks policy announced by the government is in violation of earlier HC orders. GTSOA president Manuel Cardozo said “The beach shacks policy is meant for the unemployed youth. This policy gives complete monopoly to the seniors. All those with one year experience and above should be put in the 90% experienced category. Why have a separate category for those with up to four years experience. There are so many with one year's experience who are even waiting for 15 years to get a license again. Just leaving 10% for those with up to four years experience is not right,” he said, adding that they are waiting for the policy to be notified before deciding on their next step.
He said they are planning to approach the HC to do away with the provision of 10% shacks for those with up to four years experience.