As the tourism season is nearing a peak there comes the unsettling news that the beach cleaning services have been stopped. And, has the Tourism Department been taken unawares by the abrupt halt in beach cleaning services? With Tourism Minister Manohar Azgaonkar saying it is ‘unfortunate that the agency withdrew at a time when the tourism season is at its peak’ it almost appears as if the government expected Drishti Lifesaving to continue the task. Drishti’s action, however, has not been a measure of protest, but simply came about because the agreement that the agency had with the government has ended.
This, therefore, shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the department, as the agency has gone on record that it had brought it to the attention of Tourism Department that the agreement was coming to an end but received no response and so decided to stop the beach cleaning activity. And look at the response and the explanation given by Tourism Department. It says that since the agency has discontinued beach cleaning services, the Department with the assistance of the project cell of GTDC will work on interim measures for beach cleaning as the State is in the midst of the tourism season. It further states that the Department will work out solutions within a day or two and then take up cleaning of important beaches on priority.
The Tourism Minister has assured a permanent solution to the issue at the earliest. But the earliest will easily take a few weeks if not months as government procedure involves tendering for an agency and with the corruption allegations that accompanied the previous tender still not resolved, the government will have to bring in various checks and balances in the system. The question is why wasn’t or why couldn’t a permanent solution have been found earlier? If one recalls, Drishti came in as a stopgap arrangement in December 2016, on the request of the government after the appointment of the two agencies for beach cleaning had been terminated due to allegation of a multi-crore scam.
That case is not entirely cleared despite the Lokayukta finding the former minister guilty of favouritism, and two years later, Goa Tourism is scrambling to bring in some interim measures to cleaning the beaches all over again. It had ample time to get its act together and have a permanent solution to beach cleaning, and that it has not done so is a strong indication that the State is just not serious about tourism development. When the State depends almost entirely on its beaches for its tourism, beach cleaning should have been a priority, but every indication here is that the government does not consider it so. Even as it stumbles ahead in drafting a master plan for the industry, a solution to beach cleaning evades the State and all we have are interim measures being worked out.
There is little time to be lost. The season is picking up fast. The International Film Festival of India will be opening in less than a week’s time, and the peak December period is just a few weeks away. Will Goa welcome its visitors with dirty beaches? If the interim measures are not in place soon, visitors to the film festival who stray onto the beaches could well find themselves walking on unclean sand. That is not the image Goa wants to portray to its guests. But then, the government has let this mess happen, it now has to emerge out of it and time is running out fast. Goa Tourism has to work fast, if it wants the tourists to find the beaches clean.
